Ovarian cancer is often not diagnosed until it is in it's advanced stages and difficult to treat.
The new test lmay detect early stages of ovarian cancer with 95 percent effectiveness.
The Study's authors, Dr. Gil Mor from Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues, screened blood levels of 106 disease-free test subjects and 100 ovarian cancer patients, including 24 diagnosed with early-stage disease.
Four proteins showed show significantly different levels in healthy women versus women with cancer.
The researchers then developed the blood screen for ovarian cancer based on the four proteins.
Tests of more than 200 women discovered that if the levels of two or more of these proteins fell within a certain range, a tumor was present.
Ovarian cancer often shows few early symptoms and is often diagnosed late. When caught in its early stages, however, about 70 percent to 80 percent of ovarian cancers can be cured.
