By
Malathy Iyer, TNN: MUMBAI:
Ovarian
cancer is considered one of the most fatal gynecologic cancers because
it remains silent for a long time. Now, researchers from Wake Forest Baptist
Medical Centre in North Carolina, the United States, say that a simple blood
test could forewarn women about this deadly cancer. All women need to do is
to find out their blood calcium levels. If the levels are high, then there
is an increased risk of ovarian cancer, said the researchers.
The Wake Forest team studied two groups --
women who were later diagnosed with ovarian cancer and women who later died
of ovarian cancer - and found both had high levels of calcium in blood. The
study, published in the journal Gynecologic Oncology, was led by
Gary G
Schwartz, who did a similar study among patients with prostate cancer.
His study had shown that men whose calcium levels were higher than normal
had an increased risk of fatal prostate cancer.
The university's press release quotes
Schwartz as saying, "Everyone's got calcium and the body regulates it very
tightly." As the medical fraternity knows that some rare forms of ovarian
cancer are associated with very high calcium, he decided to check whether
more common ovarian cancers are also associated with moderately high
calcium. The
theory seemed plausible because ovarian cancers express increased levels
of a protein, parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTRHrP), which is known
to raise calcium levels in blood in many other cancers.
( Courtesy:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ )
