“I went in for a hysterectomy and when I woke up, they told me I had ovarian cancer. Let’s just say I was in total shock,” recalls Chartrand. Her shock was followed by five months of intense chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer that put her life on hold. the five-year survival rate for her stage III diagnosis was roughly one in three. Chartrand, a mother of three, was in for the fight of her life.

With few early symptoms, ovarian cancer–like many cancers–can be hard to detect without invasive and expensive procedures. “Early detection is absolutely not only key but probably the only way for us to win the war on cancer,” says Vadim Backman who is a biomedical engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

This video is not supported by your browser at this time.

With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), in part funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), Backman’s research is shedding light on how early cancer detection can be made cheaper, more accurate and less invasive. “We’re developing new optics technologies to learn about tissue structure and composition, and we are applying these technologies for early cancer screening,” he says.

The team’s research is part of a field that’s called bio-photonics, where light becomes an analytical tool for biology. Backman and his colleagues perfected a new type of microscopy, which they most recently demonstrated using cheek cells harvested with a small brush stroked against the inside of the mouth. When the researchers shine light on the harvested cells, photons bounce off structures within them at different angles depending on whether the cells are healthy or not.

The process is highly sensitive, able to detect even subtle abnormalities that could indicate problems elsewhere in the body. Backman is currently developing screeners for a number of cancers by harvesting cells from areas near organs that could become malignant. For example, cheek cells are harvested as a pre-screener for lung cancer, and cells harvested from just inside the rectum can be analyzed to prescreen for potential colon cancer.

Backman says both technologies are minimally invasive and can be practiced in a primary care setting. he adds that the colon screening he’s testing doesn’t involve the discomfort of bowel prep that, as Backman says, “Everyone loves to hate.”

A slightly more invasive pre-screener takes cells from the upper intestine to screen for pancreatic cancer. the current test for pancreatic cancer involves taking a probe into ducts around the pancreas and poses a high risk of injury.

Once the harvested cells are analyzed, Backman says he can detect details previously unseen with conventional microscope technologies. “We see alterations in cells that are indicative of pre-pre cancer, if you will. If you were to take the cells under the microscope, you could not tell a difference.”

A few miles from Backman’s lab is Evanston Hospital. It’s part of Chicago Land’s NorthShore University HealthSystem. Dr. Hemant Roy is NorthShore’s director of gastroenterology. He’s also Backman’s research partner. Roy showed us a probe that takes Backman’s technology out of the lab and into practical use. the probe, which does not yet have a name, is currently used in clinical trials. It uses bio-photonics to analyze tissue inside the mouth for early lung cancer screening. It’s a small, elongated, flexible flashlight, no thicker than a pencil. It shines a small light on the inside of the mouth, reads back how the light is reflected and sends the data to a computer. Roy takes a reading by simply pushing a button while shining the light on tissue inside the cheek. Raw data sampled from the light is displayed as a small graph on the computer’s screen.

“With this probe, we’ve probably done a couple of hundred patients. We’re about 90 percent accurate,” says Roy. “I think if this works, we could really make a big difference in how we treat patients. We can make a huge impact on population screening.” One day Backman and Roy hope that devices similar to this will be used in physical exams as routinely as taking blood pressure or using that tongue depressor to make you say “ahh.”

Backman and Roy will soon be part of a new clinical trial using bio-photonics to screen cervical cells for signs of ovarian cancer. That’s something Melissa Chartrand, who has been cancer-free for over two years now, can truly appreciate. “If there had been some pre-screening tool or some kind of early detection, I might not have had to go through any of what I went through,” says Chartrand. “If they caught it earlier, it might have gone from stage III to hardly a stage I. maybe I’d have no chemo or even less surgery. Imagine that.”

If Backman and Roy’s research is any indication, the early detection that Chartrand imagines might soon be a reality.

Provided by National Science Foundation (news : web)

9 March 2011 last updated at 11:03 ET Share this page By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News the prognosis is better when cancers are spotted early

Survival from ovarian cancer has almost doubled over the last 30 years, figures from England show.

The five-year survival odds for women with early stages of the disease has increased from 21% in the early 1970s to 41% today, says Cancer Research UK.

Largely thanks to better treatments, this means over 1,000 more women a year in England and Wales are now surviving this cancer for at least five years.

But the charity says yet more needs to be done to spot tumours earlier.

Separate figures from the East of England Cancer Registry Information Centre – which covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire – show women diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer do not fare so well.

Spotting the symptoms

Survival rates for women diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer – nearly half of women – still lag behind with just over 20% surviving for five years.

And this falls to less than 6% of women with the most advanced stage IV disease that has spread to other parts of the body.

To tackle the issue of late diagnosis Cancer Research UK is helping to fund a trial of ovarian cancer screening.

More than 200,000 women are taking part in a nationwide trial testing whether ultrasound scanning and a blood test can save lives.

Early results have been promising, and the final findings are expected in 2015.

Ultimately, screening could be rolled out nationally.

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women, and each year around 6,500 women are diagnosed with the disease, with most cases diagnosed in women over 50.

Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, said: "these figures show that we're making steady progress against ovarian cancer but much more needs to be done. Cancer Research UK is committed to finding new ways to treat and detect the disease.

"In the coming years we could really see some of the benefits of this work, particularly a potential nationwide screening programme that finds women with the disease earlier.

"New treatments are also in the pipeline that could help keep the disease under control for longer, meaning that ovarian cancer becomes a disease that women can live with for many years."