Descripció del projecte
Endometrial cancer (EC) is the sixth most deadly cancer in women in developed countries. Early and accurate detection of endometrial cancer is an important contributor to survival. Current diagnostic process relies on the subjective pathological examination of an endometrial biopsy that is obtained in a minimally invasive way by aspiration, so-called pipelle biopsy. This technique presents a failure rate of 22% to provide diagnosis, mainly due to insufficient cellular material in the sampling. In those cases, an invasive biopsy by hysteroscopy must be performed, which is associated with more complications for the patient. In addition to diagnosis, these procedures should also provide information about tumor histology and grade to reach a preoperative staging of the tumor, which determine the cornserstone treatment (i.e. surgery). Interobserver variability is an important problem in pathological interpretation that leads up to 55% of incorrect staging in the preoperative diagnosis.
This inefficient and inaccurate diagnostic process triggers dramatic consequences for the life expectancy and quality of life of patients; and are associated to great sanitary costs. Importantly, this diagnostic process is performed to all women attending to the doctor with an abnormal vaginal bleeding, since it is the most common symptom of EC. Still, it is a highly unspecific symptom which originates in many other non-malignant conditions. Only 5-10% of all women presenting an abnormal vaginal bleeding will be diagnosed of EC, but all of them will have to undergo the same diagnostic procedure.
In order to improve this scenario, we are developing WomEC, which is an in vitro diagnostic test for Endometrial Cancer (EC) based on the detection of the expression level a combination of protein biomarkers in the soluble fraction of a pipelle biopsy specimen. A differential expression level of the target proteins has been associated with the occurrence of EC and specifically with different histological subtypes of EC.
The industrial PhD will be incorporated in this project, which is performed in MiMARK and in collaboration with the Group of Biomedical Research in Gynecology of Vall Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR), with the objective to:
– Conduct all the development phases of WomEC from prototype design in an antibody-based technology to clinical validation
– Conduct studies to design WomEC as a clinical mass spectrometry IVD test
– Validate the potential use of WomEC for new target population
– Exploit the use of uterine fluids for the identification of new biomarkers to improve the preoperative risk assessment of WomEC
