During Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, Aspira Women’s Health highlights its innovative mission and leadership in ovarian cancer detection and risk assessment using protein and genetics solutions
Austin, Texas | September 28, 2020
For a pdf of this press release please click here
September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecologic cancer¹, impacting women of all ages and ethnicities. Early warning signs, such as bloating, weight loss and constipation, are vague, difficult to recognize and usually go undetected². As a result, most ovarian cancer is diagnosed in its late stages, leading to a five-year survival rate of less than 30%³.
Aspira Women’s Health Inc. (“Aspira”) (Nasdaq: AWH) is evolving and accelerating risk detection solutions for this lethal disease using multi-marker proteins and state-of-the-art genetics panels. The company’s core mission is to transform women's health, globally, starting with ovarian cancer. We aim to ensure that women of all ages, stages and ethnicities have the best solutions available to assess their personalized risk of cancer at the earliest stage when it matters most. Our end goal is to serve a large global pelvic mass population and overall women’s health sector with a platform coupled with proprietary science and data tools which will drive better health and wellbeing for each patient we serve.
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“We are focused on accelerating our research and delivering these potential lifesaving tools to women. We offer FDA-cleared, ACOG guideline-endorsed protein solutions coupled with comprehensive genetic testing panels for all known hereditary gynecological cancer risk. Each product serves to increase a woman’s awareness of her risk and to provide more opportunities for early detection,” stated Valerie Palmieri, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aspira. “Also beyond ovarian cancer, we are beginning to tackle other gynecological diseases with risk management and early detection solutions. Many gynecological diseases are connected from a proteomic and genetic perspective, and we are leading the charge.
Ovarian cancer is the only gender specific cancer with a greater than 50% mortality rate³. Aspira offers testing to assess genetic risk, which can change care and surveillance for high-risk women. In patients with pelvic masses, OVA1plus has been shown to be able to detect ovarian cancer at its earliest stages, where survival rate for Stage 1 and 2 ovarian cancer is 70-90%³.
“OVA1plus is my go-to test as soon as I see an ovarian mass, especially since everyone is so scared of cancers and missing cancers. It just gives you a lot of confidence in diagnosis and treatment of patients,” says Kathy Anderson, MD an obstetrician-gynecologist in Costa Mesa, California.
In addition to early detection of ovarian cancer, Aspira works to lessen the disparity in ovarian cancer detection that exists among different ethnicities. It has been documented that Black women have a lower expression of [the CA-125 protein], which means that using CA-125 for risk assessment will disadvantage these women⁴.
OVA1plus improves the detection of the risk of ovarian cancer in Black women because of its superior sensitivity and its multi-biomarker algorithm which measures changes in nutrition and inflammation which are not ethnicity specific.
In summary, Aspira provides peace of mind to both physicians and patients by increasing the ability to detect ovarian cancer at its earliest stages or, conversely, providing high negative predictive value, as most pelvic masses are benign. We are dedicated to supporting women of all ages and ethnicities, and at all stages of ovarian cancer, as we strive to detect ovarian cancer risk as early as possible.
We “Aspire” women to take control of their gynecologic health and
“Empower” providers to deliver optimal care.
References
- “Ovarian Cancer Statistics.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/cancer/ovarian/statistics/index.htm.
- Tanne, Janice Hopkins. “US Cancer Groups Highlight Symptoms of Early Ovarian Cancer.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), BMJ Publishing Group Ltd., 23 June 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1895679/.
- “Cancer of the Ovary – Cancer Stat Facts.” SEER, seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html
- Dunton, Charles, et al. “Ethnic Disparity in Clinical Performance between Multivariate Index Assay and CA125 in Detection of Ovarian Malignancy.” Future Oncology, 9 Aug. 2019, www.futuremedicine.com/doi/10.2217/fon-2019-0310.