A substantial death rate is linked to high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC), the most frequent subtype of ovarian cancer. Surgical success or failure is a major indicator of long-term health. Presently, no reliable indicators can be used to predict which patients will gain the most from primary debulking. This research aimed to identify and verify a predictor panel for the surgical outcome of residual tumor mass after primary debulking surgery. First, 200 genes were found to be predictors of surgical outcome using an “In silico” examination of publically available datasets. For the first time ever, the cutting-edge Nanostring technique was used to verify the top selected genes in the service of this research aim. Next, data from 225 patients with primary ovarian cancer who had had complete debulking surgery were collated to create a clinical cohort. Immunohistochemistry testing was used to verify the 14 highest-scoring genes throughout the entire cohort. As the last step, researchers used their biomarker expression data to foretell the presence of military carcinomatosis. Nanostring analysis found 37 genes with significantly different expression levels (P<0.05) in individuals who were optimally slimmed down and those who were not. Immunohistochemistry verified the top 14 genes (AUC Ø0.650) as being significant. Military carcinomatosis patterns may be predicted with an area under the curve (AUC) of Ø0.797. Their data showed that tissue-based biomarkers could not accurately foretell the presence of post-operative malignancy. For patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, the surgical success of primary debulking remains largely dependent on patient and non-patient-related confounding factors, surgical expertise, and center experience.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090825822004140
