Advances in screening and early detection of ovarian cancer over
the past decade have included novel interpretation of serum
CA125, discovery of human epididymis protein 4, which has the
potential to add to CA125, and the growing understanding of the
flaws of previous biomarker studies. No mortality effect was found
in the ovarian screening arm of the Prostate Lung Colorectal and
Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial.87 Concerns, however, have been
raised about trial design, and the results from the UK Collaborative
Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening in the general population38 and
other ongoing studies in the high-risk population are awaited for
a definitive conclusion. Future work needs to take into account the
new insights into ovarian cancer subtypes and the growing
evidence that a significant proportion of ovarian cancers might
originate in premalignant lesions in the distal fallopian tube.