BURLINGTON, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp®) (NYSE: LH) today announced that Yale University has released the results of its Phase II study on a blood test to detect early stage ovarian cancer. Using six biomarkers, this blood test can discriminate between disease-free women and ovarian cancer patients (stage I-IV) with high specificity (99.4%) and sensitivity (95.3%). A Phase III trial is under way and should be completed in a few months. Initial studies are focused on women who have increased risk for the development of ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women in the United States and is the leading cause of gynecologic cancer deaths. Despite being one-tenth as common as breast cancer, it is three times more lethal and the average woman carries a 1:70 lifetime risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This year, approximately 20,180 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 15,310 will die from the disease.
