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 few treatment options.
When Professor Sudha Sundar from the University of Birmingham and her research group previously studied hormones in the urine of women getting investigated for ovarian cancer, they came across five steroid hormones which were increased in mucinous ovarian cancer cases. These steroid hormones were also higher in borderline or benign mucinous tumours, which are not cancerous tumours but are ‘precancerous’, and then were not increased in other ovarian cancer types or healthy women.
Over the next three years these researchers plan learn more about steroid metabolism by studying mucinous ovarian cancer cell lines and organoids (where a collection of cells from this tumour type are grown in a dish to replicate a tumour). They also plan to monitor women after their initial treatment for mucinous ovarian cancer to see if these hormones can spot any relapse of cancer earlier than the standard blood marker CA125.
Their hope is that this can 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.
This project has also received funding from the Birmingham Women’s global health research programme. It is with huge thanks to all 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 would like to contribute to the Rare Gynaecological Cancer Fund, you can do so through our donate link, and let us know that you would like your donation to go to the Rare Gynae Cancer Fund in the box titled ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your donation?’.