Most cases of ovarian cancer (OC) are diagnosed at advanced stages due to the lack of clinical symptoms and lack of diagnostic tests, contributing to high mortality rates. SP17 is a cancer testis antigen whose expression is restricted in somatic tissues, but that we have found is expressed in OC tissues and is found in serum from OC patients. Our goal is to validate this discovery using an independent and blinded serum sample set to determine whether measurement of serum Sp17 can detect and diagnose women with early stage OC, offering a substantial improvement to OC screening, differential diagnosis and subsequent early intervention when the chances for cure are much greater.

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