Summary: High-throughput drug screening identifies novel therapeutics for Low Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma, Kathleen I Pishas, Kaylene J Simpson, and Dane Cheasley et al. Summary by Dr Dane Cheasley of recently published, nature.com (September 2024) research paper.
Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) is a rare type of ovarian cancer that disproportionately affects younger women. Unlike more common types, it grows slowly but is especially difficult to treat because it doesn’t respond well to standard chemotherapy. Sadly, this means that for many women, treatment options are limited, especially when the cancer comes back.
To help find better treatments, researchers Dr Dane Cheasley, Dr Kathleen Pishas, and Professor Kaylene Simpson, from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, led a large-scale drug screening study. They tested over 3,500 different drugs on ovarian cancer cells grown in the lab from real patient tumour samples, alongside healthy ovarian cells for comparison. The goal was to find drugs that could effectively kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed.
Excitingly, the team found several promising drugs, some already known and some brand new, that were highly effective against LGSOC cells in the lab. These discoveries open the door to developing more targeted and personalised treatments for this hard-to-treat cancer.
This important research lays the groundwork for future pre-clinical validation studies and clinical trials. The Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation is proud to have supported the early research by Dr Cheasley that helped shape this project development, helping improve the outlook for women with rare and treatment-resistant ovarian cancers like LGSOC.
To read the report in full, please click here.
The lifetime risk of a woman developing a gynae cancer is 1 in 20, so almost every Australian will have a close friend or relative affected. With only a 68% survival rate, a diagnosis of a gynae cancer comes with an unacceptably high mortality rate.
30 years ago, breast cancer had a 5–year survial rate of 72% and gynae cancer had a 5-year survival rate of 59%. By 2015, the 5-year survival rate for breast cancer had increased to 90%, while the 5-year survival for gynae cancer was still only 68%. This means that the survival for gynae cancer is improving at only half the rate as breast cancer.
Well funded research has the ability to deliver very substantial improvements in survival. It’s that simple and every moment counts.
More than 5500 new cases are diagnosed each year in Australia. This is predicted to rise to 6000 new cases by 2020. These cancers represent 10% of all cancers in women, and cause 9% of cancer-related deaths in women.
Since the human genome project was completed in 2003, rapid progress has been made in cancer research, but progress has been slow for gynae cancers because comparatively little research money has been allocated to these cancers. By providing more charity research grant money, we will be able to attract more scientists to work in the field of gynae cancers.
“There appears to be a relationship between levels of direct research investment and improvements in 5-year relative survival… cancers which receive larger amounts of direct funding to research projects… have shown greater improvements in 5-year relative survival.”
Comforting cancer sufferers is no longer good enough. We need more research funding to save lives. Read more about our current and unfunded research projects
Australia was one of the first countries in the world, after the United States, to recognize Gynaecological Oncology as a subspecialty of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Official recognition by the (then) Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RACOG) occurred in 1985, and training in gynaecological oncology was introduced in 1987. It takes 3 years of subspecialty training, following training in general Obstetrics and Gynaecology, to become a Certified Gynaecological Oncologist of the (now) RANZCOG. Gynaecological oncologists work as part of a multidisciplinary team in Gynaecological Cancer Centres in all capital cities in Australia, and in Newcastle. Outreach clinics are held in some large country towns. Gynaecological Cancer Centres employ specialised psychologists, social workers and nurses to ensure that survivorship is appropriately addressed.
Results of treatment for gynaecological cancer in Australia are comparable with the best in the world.
Early diagnosis of cervical cancer was improved when the National Cervical Cancer Screening Program was introduced in 1992, and this program has seen the incidence of cervical cancer fall by about 50%.
Early diagnosis of ovarian cancer remains an elusive goal, but research to find a screening test is ongoing. Research into many aspects of ovarian cancer is ongoing via the Australian Ovarian Cancer Study, a large multicentre study which has accrued about 1500 patients. It is one of the largest ovarian cancer studies in the world.
The Australian and New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group (ANZGOG) conduct important clinical trials in collaboration with other clinical trials groups around the world, including the Gynaecological Cancer Intergroup (GCIG).
A lot of research is being done, but much more could be done with more financial resources. Money raised by the AGCF will be used to fund research, both through the ANZGOG clinical trials, and through laboratory research into the various cancers.
