FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 12, 2004

contact: Rich Murphy, PNRI (206) 726-1200 rmurphy@pnri.org

Seattle--The ovarian cancer research being conducted at Pacific Northwest Research Institute (PNRI) under the direction of Karl Erik and Ingegerd Hellstrom was featured in this morning's Wall Street Journal. In an article entitled, "Ovarian Cancer: Discovery Could Yield Early Test," Journal reporter Michael Waldholz describes the promise of recently discovered proteins in diagnosing ovarian cancer. According to the article, the Hellstroms are among a number of scientific teams "searching intensely for easily identifiable biomarkers of ovarian cancer than can be detected with a relatively simple and inexpensive blood test." The Journal goes on to describe the Hellstroms' recent breakthrough work in developing such a test.

The importance of this work is that ovarian cancer is such a difficult disease to detect. As the Journal article makes clear, most cases remain undiagnosed until it is too late for effective treatment. Citing American Cancer Society statistics, reporter Waldholz explains that when the cancer is detected early, patients have a very high chance of successful treatment. When it is not found until it has spread to other parts of the body--as is usually the case--the survival rate drops dramatically. "Ovarian cancer accounts for only 4% of all cancer among women," Waldholz writes, "but it is one of the deadliest forms."

The key proteins in this latest development of ovarian cancer research are HE4 and mesothelin. HE4 was discovered in 1999 by Michel Schummer, a Seattle area researcher working then at the University of Washington. Mesothelin was found even earlier by the Hellstroms. Both proteins are released by ovarian cancer cells into the blood. The Hellstroms have since used these discoveries to develop a simple and reliable test to diagnose the disease. They collaborated with Schummer, along with Martin McIntosh from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and others, to design an antibody test for the distinctive proteins--or "biomarkers"--whose presence discloses ovarian cancer. "A reliably predictable, early detection test," McIntosh told the Journal, "would revolutionize treatment of the disease."

The Hellstroms' test was first reported this past July in the Journal of Cancer Research. Since then they have continued to develop it in their PNRI laboratory. It is also being developed for commercial use by Fujirebio Diagnostics, to whom the technology has been licensed. Separate tests for each of the proteins have produced promising results in detecting ovarian cancer. But when the proteins are combined and tested together--along with CA-125, the only currently available clinical biomarker test for the disease--researchers are finding the results even more effective.

These latest findings have not been published yet, and Ingegerd Hellstrom tells the Journal that they will need to be subjected to further scrutiny and larger trials. However, "the unpublished results," she says, "suggest that, when [the biomarker protein tests] are combined together, we may be able to pick up very early cancers."

And that is the story Journal writer Waldholz is following. In the near term, he says, the test the Hellstroms and their colleagues are developing may lead to more effective testing for patients who have already been diagnosed with the disease. "But the big hope," he says, "remains a screening test for seemingly healthy women."

This morning's article describes some important recent steps toward that goal.