International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Women's health research has identified a link between the sudden growth of metastatic ovarian cancer and dendritic cells of the patient's immune system.

A team at The Wistar Institute in the US studied a mouse model of an oncogene-driven tumour that becomes antigenic spontaneously.

The scientists discovered cancer growth can be suppressed by the immune system for a certain period of time, but it thrives when dendritic cells, which are supposed to alert the immune system to threats, begin working with the disease by stopping T cells from attacking the illness.

It was found depleting the dendritic cells early on in tumour growth accelerates its spread, while doing so later on delays its progression.

Dr Jose Conejo-Garcia, associate professor at Wistar and leader of the Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program of Wistar's Cancer Center, said: "Our findings suggest that the enduring activity of these T cells would allow us to control metastatic ovarian cancer by targeting the dendritic cells that actively prevent their anti-tumour functions."

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine and comes after an online tool was developed by researchers at ClinRisk and the University of Nottingham in the UK to help GPs spot ovarian cancer in its early stages.

Posted by Alexandra George