The Impact of Your Support

Identifying cancer at its inception, when it is most curable, is a major goal of many Hutchinson Center scientists, and their groundbreaking research would not be possible without private support like yours. At this year’s Hutch Award Luncheon, attendees showed their unwavering commitment to early detection by meeting a $100,000 challenge to support The Gregory Fund. Your remarkable generosity made the luncheon the most successful in the event’s history.

Your contributions fund innovative research into disease risk and development so researchers can develop early detection strategies that are increasingly effective for more types of cancer. Below we share some recent progress in the area of early cancer detection research.

Answering key questions about biomarkers

Hutchinson Center investigators continue to make significant advances in identifying and validating biomarkers — molecules in the blood used as indicators of a particular disease state — for a variety of cancer types. However, researchers still lack methods for answering key questions about candidate markers. For example, is a new biomarker specific for the cancer type in which it was discovered, or it is also expressed in other cancers or even in benign conditions? Does a biomarker detected in the blood originate from the tumor itself, or is it produced as part of the body’s response to the tumor?

Answers to questions like these help researchers determine how best to use new markers in the clinic, both for early detection and for monitoring treatment response.

With the help of private support, Drs. Beatrice Knudsen, Sam Hanash and Paul Lampe are collaborating to develop tools that will help answer these questions. They are using a state-of-the-art technology known as reverse protein lysate arrays to simultaneously search for the presence of specific biomarkers across thousands of samples taken from ovarian, prostate, lung, breast, colon, pancreas and liver cancer cells grown in the lab.

The data generated from this study promises to provide novel insight about the specificity of various biomarkers, knowledge that can be immediately translated to improve the early detection of cancer. The procedures and techniques they refine will accelerate researchers’ ongoing efforts to pinpoint new, clinically useful disease biomarkers.

Enhancing ovarian cancer early detection

Early detection is fundamental to improved outcomes for women with ovarian cancer, and Dr. Nicole Urban is leading Center efforts to enhance screening for this disease. She and her colleagues recently launched an early stage, multi-institutional trial to assess the safety and feasibility of using HE4, a biomarker discovered by Dr. Urban’s team, in combination with other screening tools in women considered to be at high risk for ovarian cancer.

The trial compares two strategies. One uses two blood-based markers, CA125 and HE4, in combination as a first-line screen to identify women for second-line imaging. The other strategy uses CA125 by itself as a first-line screen to select women for subsequent imaging and HE4 testing. Comparison of these approaches will help researchers identify how best to use new markers like HE4 in concert with other screening tools. Recruitment for the trial is going well at the five sites; the research team has already enrolled 645 women, more than half of their cumulative study goal.

In addition to improving screening accuracy, thereby avoiding false positives and unnecessary additional procedures for many women, using multiple screening tools in combination will help investigators like Dr. Urban identify the best ways to detect all ovarian cancers earlier, when they are easier to treat.

Tools for low- and middle-resource nations

The Center’s efforts to improve early cancer detection extend beyond new biomarkers and even beyond our own labs, as shown by recent publications of the Breast Health Global Initiative. This global alliance of physicians is led by Dr. Ben Anderson, who recently received the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2011 Partners in Progress Award.  Together they are working to develop evidence-based, economically feasible and culturally appropriate guidelines to improve breast health outcomes in low- and middle-resource nations.

Researchers found a host of diverse barriers that keep women from being screened and treated for breast cancer, such as lack of public awareness, access to screening and physician training, as well as misconceptions about the disease. Not only did the studies provide insight into the barriers faced, the work also revealed strategies that could be used to overcome them.

In particular, the Breast Health Global Initiative’s reports outline new programs that have been implemented to improve breast cancer screening and care in developing nations. These careful, culturally sensitive adaptations of well-tested U.S. methodologies are designed to serve as models to help researchers and administrators in low- and middle-resource countries translate breast health guidelines into real-world practice. These reports provide practical tools and systems that have the capability to improve early detection, making a significant difference in the lives of women around the world.

Thank you

We are grateful for your support of The Gregory Fund and the Center’s early cancer detection research efforts, which hold the promise of one day finding all cancers at their earliest, most curable stage.