Study offers hope for cancer therapy

Ovarian cancer patients could be helped by a test that identifies the specific type of tumour they have. University researchers hope this improved diagnosis will help doctors to personalise treatment programmes so that patients receive the most effective drugs. The Edinburgh team worked with scientists from Ireland to identify six subgroups of the disease, each of which had a different genetic signature. To do this, they analysed tissue samples from more than 350 ovarian cancer patients and compared this information with the patients' medical records. The results show how genetic profiling of ovarian cancers might predict a person's response to drug treatments. Personalised medicine. Researchers say the development may be particularly helpful for women with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer, which is typically caught late by current diagnostic tests.