Uterine lavage for the detection of ovarian cancer using an expanded gene panel

Abstract

Current screening methods for ovarian cancer have failed to demonstrate a significant reduction in mortality. Uterine lavage catheters have been used to detect tumor-specific TP53 mutations from cells presumably shed from high-grade serous ovarian cancer, but this technique may not identify non-serous subtypes or early-stage disease. We aimed to pilot the combination of deep sequencing methods with an expanded gene panel to improve detection of both early stage and non-serous ovarian cancers.