A recent collaboration between the Imperial College of London and the University of Oxford recently validated a new method for subtyping Ovarian Cancer. Medical researchers at the University of Oxford came up with the approach and named it the “Oxford Classic.”
Oxford Classic is going to assist medical practitioners in developing targeted cancer therapies and predicting patient disease outcomes.
In full, researchers refer to the approach as “Oxford Classification of Carcinoma of the Ovary”. Teams from both institutions have established the possibility of discovering and identifying subtypes of ovarian cancer cells. Using the identifications, they can accurately track what sub-types are likely to cause severe cancer outcomes.
The approach has given birth to an effective prognosis of Serous Ovarian Cancer (SOC). SOC is one of the most common strains of cancer. The research team identified a particular subtype of SOC called the EMT-high subtype -; which they found out has a lower survival rate.
Epithelial-mesenchymal transition or EMT is the process of epithelial cells transitioning to become more mobile. Cancer progression takes place as a result of the mobility of the epithelial cells. Therefore, when a patient has EMT-high subtypes, it means they have tumors with increased numbers of mobile cancerous cells.
The study also found that EMT-high subtypes had large amounts of M2 macrophage immune cells. These cells are life-threatening when in large quantities because they contain immunosuppressive properties. Researchers have in the past noticed weak immune responses in patients with high-EMT tumors. Scholars had not yet established this link until recently. Therefore, the study confirmed the association between an immunosuppressive environment and EMT-high subtypes.
The Clinical Cancer Research demonstrated effectiveness of Oxford Classic through sampling independent subtypes from selected patients with ovarian cancer. The research will set the path for future developments on EMT and EMT results in high M2 macrophages. Already, the study has indicated the possibility of finding treatment options for patients with EMT-high subtypes. A move that brings medical research closer to the goal of curing ovarian cancer