Mucinous ovarian cancer is a rare form of ovarian cancer, which accounts for just 2-3% of all ovarian cancer cases and tends to affect women and people with ovaries in their 40s and 50s. Unfortunately, when diagnosed at a later stage, mucinous ovarian cancer has limited treatment options.
Prof Sundar and her group plan to look into five key markers they have seen to be linked to mucinous cancer development to see if they can understand them further.
Prof Sundar and her group have previously looked into steroids (hormones) in the urine of women getting investigated for ovarian cancer. During this work, they came across five which were increased in mucinous ovarian cancer. These steroids were also higher in borderline or benign mucinous tumours, which are tumours that are not cancerous or are ‘precancerous’, but weren’t increased in other types of ovarian cancer or healthy women. The team believe this could mean that the process of breaking down or ‘metabolising’ steroids may be involved in the development of mucinous ovarian cancer and that this process could be used as a marker to detect the development of this rare cancer type.
These findings have inspired the research team to want to look into steroid metabolism further to see if they could understand how and why mucinous ovarian cancer develops. They hope that their findings could one day lead to a new tool to diagnose mucinous ovarian cancer, offer potential avenues for new treatments, and a way of monitoring people’s progress through their treatment.
Over the next three years they plan learn more about steroid metabolism by looking at mucinous ovarian cancer cell lines as well as organoids (3D tumour avatars), where a collection of cells from this tumour type are grown in a dish to replicate a tumour. The team also plan to monitor women who are being followed up after initial treatment for mucinous ovarian cancer to see if these hormones can spot relapse of cancer earlier than usual blood marker CA125.
This project has also received funding from the Birmingham Women’s global health research programme. It is with huge thanks to all of the supporters who donated to the Rare Gynae Cancer Fund that we have been able to support this project and we look forward to updating you on its progress.
If you have been diagnosed with mucinous ovarian cancer, we have some information here on our website. Our Ask Eve nurses are also here to help with any advice or information, you can get in touch for free on nurse@eveappeal.org.uk or 0808 802 0019.