Adapted from the NCI Cancer Bulletin. Researchers at Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass., have found that the source of
disease in many cases of the most aggressive form of ovarian
cancer, serous carcinoma, may not be the ovary at all, but
rather the fimbria of the fallopian tube. Dr. Keren Levanon
reported these findings at the American Association for Cancer
Research annual meeting on April 14, 2008. "Until now, there was
no understanding of the basic pathogenesis or carcinogenesis of
[ovarian] serous carcinoma," said Dr. Levanon at the meeting.
Noting that the majority of ovarian cancers are diagnosed at an
advanced stage, she continued: "We didn't really know what the
early cancer lesion or precursor lesion looks like, so we
couldn't analyze what went wrong." Her team, which included
collaborators at Brigham and Women's Hospital, searched for
these early lesions by identifying cells with a "p53 signature"
- mutations in the p53 gene and buildup of p53 protein in cells
- in the tissues of women w