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BOB HIRSHON (host):
A new tool against ovarian cancer…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, in part because it rarely gets detected early, when treatments are most effective. But researchers at Georgia Tech are developing a new diagnostic tool that identifies the disease with high accuracy. Molecular biologist John McDonald and his team used a specialized computer program to analyze 20,000 chemical components in the blood of ovarian cancer patients and healthy controls.
JOHN McDONALD (Georgia Tech):
And then you ask the computer program to look at those molecules and identify those that are diagnostically different and that results in a model of the profiles of cancer and normal. And we came back with a test that was 100% accurate in distinguishing cancer patients from normal.
HIRSHON:
He says if the test is validated in a larger sample of women, it could one day become a regular part of an annual gynecological exam. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.