Evaluation of Multiple Biomarkers to Estimate Risk of Ovarian Cancer in Patients With a Pelvic Mass.

ANGLE has developed the Parsortix™ Cell Separation System (Parsortix), an automated system capable of harvesting rare circulating cells for analysis from a sample of peripheral blood based on cellular size and deformability. In a small pilot study, scientists at the Medical University of Vienna demonstrated that measurement of a combination of mRNA markers extracted from CTCs captured using the Parsortix system could be used to identify women with ovarian cancer. This study is designed to provide specimens for optimization of an assay using clinical and biomarker information (i.e. demographics, imaging results and/or serum tumor markers) in combination with mRNA extracted from rare cells in the blood of women presenting with a pelvic mass for the detection of malignancy. Primary Objective: Optimization of an assay for the differentiation of women with benign pelvic masses from those with malignant pelvic masses using mRNA markers extracted from CTCs isolated from whole blood. Multiple serum tumor markers and mRNA markers will be measured, and the results will be compared to the actual clinical diagnosis made for each patient through other recognized methods (e.g. histopathology). The blood samples collected in the course of this study will be used to finalize the selection of mRNA and/or serum tumor markers to be evaluated in future prospective studies. Exploratory Objective: Use statistical modeling to determine the need for and/or preliminary design of a mathematical algorithm to combine the multiple serum tumor and/or mRNA markers for estimation of the risk of ovarian cancer.