Essential Testing Following an Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis
What essential testing should follow an ovarian cancer diagnosis? Dr. Heidi Gray explains that patients should undergo both genetic testing, which identifies inherited risk factors, and molecular testing, which evaluates specific tumor mutations.
Dr. Heidi Gray is the Division Chief of Gynecologic Oncology and the Director of Gynecologic Oncology Clinical Trials at UW Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Gray.
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
Dr. Gray, what essential testing should people with ovarian cancer have following diagnosis?
Dr. Heidi Gray:
That’s a great question. We’re learning more and more about this disease. Therefore, we also have a lot more variety of tools to look at to be able to match better therapies for patients. Historically, when patients were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, it was based on just the pathology at the time of surgery and some lab testing called the CA-125, which many patients with ovarian cancer are familiar with.
The next level of testing that we are doing for ovarian cancer is really to look at how aspects of either the patient themselves or of the cancer themselves that might better match therapies. So, the first line of testing we recommend for all women for ovarian cancer is genetic testing. Genetic testing is blood-based testing.
It is testing for if you have an inherited gene or a mutated gene, that’s being passed along through families that may have put you at risk of developing ovarian cancer and potentially breast cancer. That is recommended for all women and patients who have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer because we know about 15 percent to 20 percent of these cancers are due to a genetic cause.
The other level of testing that we have incorporated is what we call molecular testing. Other terms for it are “tumor-based testing” – I think you use the term “biomarker testing.” Some people use the term “precision medicine,” and that is a little different. That is testing that is actually testing the tumor itself. It’s looking at a variety of different factors but particularly looking at mutations in the cancer itself, in the tumor itself, so different than the genetic, which is an inherited thing. This is in the tumor itself. There is some overlap of that.
But it has an expanded profile of different targets that we can match therapies to.
Katherine Banwell:
Would you define biomarker testing for us?
Dr. Heidi Gray:
Yeah. So, biomarker testing is just that. It is more expanded testing, particularly tumor testing is one aspect of it. There can also be some blood testing, genetic testing. Then there is a new realm also of looking at cell-free DNA or ct or tumor DNA in the blood as well too that is gaining a lot of interest.
