World’s biggest ovarian cancer trial

First evidence to suggest that screening for ovarian cancer may save lives. New results from the world's biggest ovarian cancer screening trial, led by UCL in collaboration with Cardiff and other centres in the UK, suggest that screening based on an annual blood test may help reduce the number of women dying from the disease by around 20%. The research, published today (Thursday) in the Lancet, also cautions that longer follow up is needed to establish more certain estimates of how many deaths from ovarian cancer could be prevented by screening. Estimates from the results so far are promising, but the exact figures remain uncertain. The UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) is an international ovarian cancer screening trial, led by UCL and funded by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, Department of Health and The Eve Appeal. Ovarian cancer was diagnosed in 1,282 women during the 14-year study of more than 200,000 post-menopausal women aged 50 to 74, of whom 649 had died of the disease by the trial end in December 2014. The study showed a delayed effect on mortality between the screening and control arms, which became significant after the first seven years of the trial.