HEALTHLINX chairman Greg Rice has responded to claims by a leading womens cancer organisation that there is no proof the companys OvPlex ovarian cancer test will save lives, saying HealthLinx has completed a scientifically sound and valid trial of OvPlex and it is a better test than CA125.
An ovarian cancer cell
The National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre told WA Today yesterday that there was currently no evidence that OvPlex had any impact on ovarian cancer mortality.
Rice told BiotechnologyNews.net this morning that there was currently no evidence that any test including pelvic examination, CA125, biomarkers, ultrasound or combination tests had any effect on reducing the deaths associated with ovarian cancer.
A test provides information to clinicians and then depending on what they do affects the outcome of the disease, he said.
So really OvPlex is providing, what we believe, more useful information in these particular cases and what the clinician does with it thereafter really determines the outcome.
Rice said OvPlex was an alternative to CA125 that performed better in symptomatic women.
Really the thing to understand is the key to improving global health is the early and accurate diagnosis of disease and the more accurate a test is, the more valuable and useful the information is, he said.
Rice told BTN that about 150 tests had been done so far in Australia and maybe about six to eight of those had returned positive results.
Last month HealthLinx launched a new international 11,450-patient study of a second-generation OvPlex test focusing on the impact two new biomarkers including the recently described AGR2 may have on the current technology.
The existing OvPlex test, used in Australia and the UK, includes five biomarkers for ovarian cancer, while the second-generation test measures seven.
HealthLinx expects the new generation test will improve the performance of the current test from 94% for all stages to 97% or more.
Supported with $750,000 worth of funding from the Victorian Science Agenda Investment Fund, the study will be conducted at sites in Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
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