This study reveals how ovarian cancer begins in women

A team of researchers appear to have found the origin of common ovarian cancer, allowing them to characterize how a genetic mutation puts women at high risk. Findings of the research have been published in the Cell Reports Journal. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of gynecology cancer deaths in the US, in part because symptoms are often subtle and most tumours elude detection until they are in the advanced stage.
According to the American Cancer Society, while the lifetime risk of developing ovarian cancer is less than two per cent for the general female population, the estimated risk for women who carry a mutation in the so-called BRCA-1 gene is between 35 per cent and 70 per cent. Faced with such steep odds, some women with the mutations choose to have their breasts or ovaries and fallopian tubes surgically removed even though they may never develop cancers in these tissues.
The new study findings could help doctors pinpoint which of these women are most likely to develop ovarian cancer in the future, and pursue new ways to block the process or treat cancer.
Clive Svendsen, PhD, executive director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, said, “We created these fallopian organdies using cells from women with BRCA-1 mutations who had ovarian cancer. Our data support recent research indicating that ovarian cancer in these patients actually begins with cancerous lesions in the fallopian tube linings. If we can detect these abnormalities at the outset, we may be able to short-circuit ovarian cancer.”