Screening program in ovarian cancer: A logical step in clinical management? A meta-analysis

Treatment of ovarian cancer (OC) is a challenge and its poor prognosis still remains a problem of major importance. Due to the lack of early and specific symptoms, the vast majority of women are diagnosed with an advanced stage disease. The aim of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the impact of OC screening program in asymptomatic women on clinical outcomes.

A systematic literature electronic search was conducted in Pubmed, Medline, Scopus, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases. Articles were selected with a systematic approach. Clinical trials concerning screening strategy compared with usual care in asymptomatic OC women were considered, without any restrictions on the publication date. Trials were eligible if participants were asymptomatic and postmenopausal women. Outcomes included OC diagnosis and disease specific mortality. The pooled relative risk (RR) was calculated using a fixed-effects model.

Overall, 3 randomized controlled trials met inclusion criteria, totaling 353,590 asymptomatic women. In total 177,188 women were assigned to screening program, and 176,402 women were assigned to usual care. The risk of OC diagnosis, both overall and at an early stage, was higher in screening group (RR = 1.07, 95% CI: 0.98-1.18; and RR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.14-1.49, respectively). The RR for disease specific mortality was 0.96 (95% CI: 0.85-1.10).

Our results suggest the possible benefit of OC screening program in term of early stage diagnosis and reduced specific OC mortality. Further studies of environmental or constitutional factors may lead to the identification of patient populations that could benefit from a screening program.