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Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Ovarian Cancer Patient-Derived Organoid Models for Pre-Clinical Drug Testing
Published on: September 15, 2023
Inherited cancer syndromes in 220 Italian ovarian cancer patients
I Carnevali1, C Riva2, A M Chiaravalli1
1Department of Pathology, Ospedale di Circolo, ASST-Sette Laghi, Via O. Rossi 9, 21100 Varese, Italy; Research Center for the Study of Hereditary and Familial Tumors, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy.
Background:
A subsets of ovarian carcinomas (OCs) are related to inherited conditions including Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancers (HBOC) and Lynch Syndrome (LS). The identification of inherited conditions using genetic testing might be a strategic model for cancer prevention that include benefits for the ovarian cancer patients and for their family members.
Methods:
We describe a retrospective Italian experience for the identification of inherited conditions in 232 patients affected by OCs using both somatic and germline analyses.
Results:
Immunohistochemical and microsatellite analyses performed on OCs identified 20 out of 101 MMR defective cancers and 15 of these were from patients carriers of the MMR germline pathogenetic variants. BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing offered to 198 OC patients revealed 67 (34%) pathogenetic variant carriers of BRCA1/2 genes. Interestingly LS patients revealed a mean age of OC onset of 45.4 years, which was significantly lower than the mean age of OCs onset of HBOC patients.
Conclusions:
Somatic and germline analyses offered to OC patients has proved to be an efficient strategy for the identification of inherited conditions involving OC also in absence of suggestive family histories. The identification of LS and HBOC syndromes through OC patients is an effective tool for OC prevention.
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