
Findings from a new study provide additional evidence that the most common type of ovarian cancer may originate in the fallopian tubes. Researchers also found that there is a window of several years between the development of abnormal cells, or lesions, in the fallopian tubes and the start of ovarian cancer.
The findings “have significant implications for the prevention, early detection, and therapeutic intervention of this disease,” the study investigators wrote.
In the study, published October 23 in Nature Communications, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute analyzed multiple tumor samples from nine patients with high-grade serous ovarian carcinomas (HGSOC), the subtype that accounts for approximately 75% of ovarian cancers.
The researchers found that most of the genetic alterations seen in ovarian tumors in these patients were present in lesions that had formed years earlier in their fallopian tubes. This finding is important, they wrote, because it could potentially help to enable earlier detection of the disease. Currently, about 70% of women with HGSOC are diagnosed with advanced stage disease.
Source: NCI







