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Dr. Concepcion Diaz-Arrastia, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, is working to create a screening procedure in which a few drops of blood drawn from a woman’s finger would reveal the signs of potential cervical cancer development. Diaz-Arrastia’s research is based on proteomics, the scientific discipline that examines the function and nature of proteins in the human body.
Because women with persistent and progressive human papillomavirus (HPV) infections are at greater risk of contracting cervical cancer, Diaz-Arrastia envisions identifying the unique protein characteristics linked to such HPV infections. She could then design a finger-stick test to recognize women with those protein traits, thereby giving them early warning for the possible occurrence of cervical cancer.
Such finger-stick screenings would vastly improve medicine’s current cervical cancer identification procedure, the Pap test. Pap tests pinpoint only a fourth of all cervical cancers and have been known to produce significant numbers of false-positive results that require additional patient consultations. In addition, women who have the highest cervical cancer risk often forgo the recommended annual screening, typically due to the related cost and inconvenience. Almost 80 percent of all cases worldwide are reported in developing countries.
World Health Organization statistics cite HPV as the second
leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women globally, with almost
290,000 lives lost each year. The American Cancer Society estimates that
approximately 10,000 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be reported in
the
Diaz-Arrastia said the Pardee Foundation’s commitment will help advance her cancer research. “The Pardee Foundation’s support is vital to my cervical cancer study,” she said. “Thanks to the foresight of the foundation’s board of directors, we will be one step closer to identifying women truly at risk of cervical cancer.”
Dr. Garland D. Anderson, chairman of UTMB’s Department of
Obstetrics and Gynecology, said, “The Pardee
Foundation is helping pave the way to develop an even more reliable, convenient
and cost-effective test for cervical cancer screening. I applaud the foundation
for taking this major step toward advancing women’s health care.”
Mrs. Elsa U. Pardee established her Michigan-based foundation in 1944 to help support cancer research, the same year she lost her life to cancer. Today the foundation’s trust fund contributes up to $4 million annually to cancer research and care.
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