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Updated: Aug 10, 2025
Characterization and Functional Prediction of Bacteria in Ovarian Tissues
Published on: October 23, 2021
Uterine Cavity Lavage Mutation Analysis in Lithuanian Ovarian Cancer Patients
Diana Žilovič1,2,3, Ieva Vaicekauskaitė1,4, Rūta Čiurlienė3
1Institute of Biosciences, Vilnius University, Sauletekio Avenue 7, LT-10222 Vilnius, Lithuania.
Background:
Type II ovarian cancer (OC) is generally diagnosed at an advanced stage, translating into a poor survival rate. Current screening methods for OC have failed to demonstrate a reduction in mortality. The uterine lavage technique has been used to detect tumor-specific TP53 mutations from cells presumably shed from high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). We aimed to pilot whether the detection of TP53 mutation in uterine cavity lavage can be used as a diagnostic method for HGSOC using an expanded gene panel.
Methods:
In this study 90, uterine lavage and 46 paired biopsy samples were analyzed using next-generation sequencing (NGS) targeting TP53 as well as five additional OC-related genes: BRCA1, BRCA2, PI3KCA, PTEN, and KRAS.
Results:
Uterine lavage was successfully applied to all patients, and 56 mutations were detected overall. TP53 mutations were detected in 27% (10/37) of cases of type HGSOC; BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations were also frequent in this group (46%; 17/37). Overall concordance between tissue and liquid biopsy samples was 65.2%.
Conclusion:
Uterine lavage TP53 mutations in combination with other biomarkers could be a useful tool for the detection of lowly invasive HGSOC.
