A global study into mucinous ovarian cancer could help oncologists recommend the best treatment for women who are diagnosed early with the condition.

By looking down a microscope for two different ‘patterns of invasion’ — the way that cancer cells invade ovarian tissue — oncologists can better predict which patients may have better or worse prognoses and can target treatment accordingly. The finding was reported in a paper published today in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“Mucinous ovarian cancer is a rare type of ovarian cancer. It actually has more in common with gastrointestinal cancers, and can be hard to diagnose and hard to treat once it has spread beyond the ovaries,” says lead author Nicki Meagher, who has just completed her PhD in the Molecular Oncology group, UNSW School of Clinical Medicine.

She says that observing which of the two types of invasion patterns that the cancer cells form could help specialists decide on treatment strategies.

“We’ve shown for the first time that women who have early-stage disease — meaning they have tumours that haven’t spread beyond the ovary — have much poorer survival chances in the first two years from diagnosis if they have what we call an infiltrative pattern of invasion.

“Knowing this in the early stage of the disease means we can identify patients who could benefit from additional chemotherapy following surgery to remove their ovaries.”

The two patterns of invasion are defined by the way the cancer cells organise themselves when viewed under a microscope. The infiltrative pattern of invasion associated with poorer health outcomes shows cancer cells spreading in an uneven, haphazard way through the ovarian tissue. The other pattern is known as expansile, where cells expand through tissue in a more orderly manner, and is associated with better prognoses.

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