Newswise — Philadelphia-Rome, March 2016 - In a study published in the international journal "Journal of Cancer", researchers focused on the role of metabolic factors such as fasting glucose and body mass index (BMI), to determine their correlation to tumor stage at diagnosis. Results indicate an association between these metabolic measures and ovarian cancer which the authors believe worthy of further investigation.

The study, “Metabolic Determinants And Anthropometric Indicators Impact Clinical-pathological Features In Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Patients,” was co-authored by a multidisciplinary Italian-American team led by Prof. Antonio Giordano, Director of the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine at Temple University. Data of interest were collected from a study population including 147 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer and treated with platinum based regimens and/or surgery at the Regina Elena National Cancer Institute of Rome.

“Ovarian cancer is one of the most feared tumors,” says Dr. Maddalena Barba, medical oncologist and clinical researcher at the Regina Elena National Cancer Institute of Rome, “having the highest fatality-to-case ratio among the gynecologic cancers. Despite important achievements in diagnostics and therapeutics, the mortality rates have remained basically stable worldwide over the past fifty years. This is probably due to the still limited understanding of its causes which fuels active research across several areas of investigation.”

“In our study population, we observed novel evidence of the association between fasting glucose and cancer stage at diagnosis. Although such evidence is not yet conclusive, it might be a key hypothesis to investigate the role of metabolic influxes on epithelial ovarian cancer,” Dr. Barba says.

“Next steps will be towards confirming our results in larger studies on the role of glucose metabolism, not only at an ovarian tissue level, but also on blood samples collected from study participants,” adds Prof. Antonio Giordano, senior scientist and scientific supervisor for the entire project. “If successful, our approach will integrate the classical morphologic characterization of ovarian cancer staging with further mechanistic insights on the molecular players and related pathways involved. This could guide more accurate risk stratification and better prediction of treatment outcomes in patients affected by this deadly form of cancer,” Prof. Giordano concludes.

See also

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26958087

Journal Link: Journal of Cancer