In Australia, one person dies from ovarian cancer every 8 hours.
There are no tools for prevention, no early detection or accurate screening tests, and its generally vague symptoms – such as bloating, abdominal pain, a reduced appetite, and fatigue – are often ignored or misdiagnosed.
Patients who google their odds are faced with frightening statistics; overall, only 49% of patients survive the 5 years following a diagnosis, and that number drops to just 29% for the more than two thirds who are diagnosed in the late stages.
But unlike breast cancer, in which an influx of funding and research breakthroughs has raised the 5-year survival rate to 91%, ovarian cancer’s grim outlook has barely improved for decades.
Dr Maree Bilandzic, a molecular cancer biologist at Australia’s Hudson Institute of Medical Research, told Cosmos the way the disease is treated hasn’t significantly changed in about 30 years.
“There’s been a huge progression in precision medicines in other types of cancers – so, a precision medicine is a cancer medicine that will target a cancer cell specifically – but we just haven’t made that progress in ovarian cancer because it’s just a big mixed bag of different types of cells.
“You need to effectively treat all of the cell types that are in there to achieve remission, and that’s not what we’re achieving at the moment.”
This lack of progress can also be attributed to a history of underfunding in the ovarian cancer research sector, compared to other major cancers. The disease’s relative rarity – about 1,800 women were diagnosed in Australia in 2020 – and a lack of federal government investment into medical research, are mostly to blame.
“We as researchers submit … grants and you quite often will get rejected. And it’s not that your idea is not good, it’s just that there’s not enough funding for everyone’s ideas,” says Bilandzic.
The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) has been doing the vital work of bridging this critical gap for 25 years.
As Australia’s leading independent body dedicated to funding medical ovarian cancer research, the OCRF lobbies government to prioritise funding via programs like the Medical Research Future Fund. Additionally, the vast majority of its research funding is generated by corporate partners, philanthropists, donors and fundraisers within the community.
Since 2010, the OCRF has provided more than $17 million in funding. Each year, new projects are supported through its National Research Grants Program, with the goal of improving 5-year survival rates to above 90%.
It prioritises projects to develop a non-invasive, accessible detection test to save lives through early-stage diagnosis, more targeted treatment options to increase outcomes and better manage disease recurrence, and preventative research to reduce disease prevalence.
As an early-to-mid-career researcher in 2019, Bilandzic was awarded a 3-year, $669,638 grant to pursue her work to understand how ovarian cancer spreads and reoccurs, and to develop new treatments to prevent this from happening.
“OCRF research funding enabled me to become a group head and start leading my own team. It gives you career opportunities and those management skills of running your own project,” she recalls.
“It funded my salary plus a junior postdoc, so she was able to also establish herself as an ovarian cancer researcher and build a research program. That 3-year cycle is incredible because you’ve got reprieve, for a small period of time, where you don’t have to write grants and just focus on your work.”
The grant allowed Bilandzic’s group at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research’s Centre for Cancer Research to investigate a previously unknown subtype of ovarian cancer cells called “leader cells”. This population makes up just 10% of the tumour but are critical to disease progression, driving metastasis and recurrence of the disease.
This is because, unlike the “follower cells” that make up 90% of ovarian cancer tumours, leader cells thrive in response to chemotherapy.
“This small population of cells don’t respond to the normal therapies … And then our patients are told there’s no evidence of disease, and these guys switch back on and then start making follower cells and leader cells, and the disease comes back,” says Bilandzic.
More than 80% of patients will see their cancer return, often with chemotherapy resistance and limited treatment options.
“The OCRF funding allowed me to do some studies to look at what happens if we get rid of leader cells … how the tumour acts in response to the absence of leader cells,” says Bilandzic. In November, the team’s findings were published in the journal Cell Reports.
It also allowed the team to screen large numbers of already approved drugs to identify ones that could be used to specifically target leader cells.
“The idea for treatment would be that you give your standard of care, which targets the bulk tumour, but you also incorporate a new treatment that will target those [leader cells] that are responsible for the disease coming back,” she says.
Already, her team has identified several promising drug candidates and tested them in animal models. They are also developing a completely new antibody therapy to target leader cells and established a company to commercialise the approach.
But, according to Bilandzic, the benefits of involvement with the OCRF extend far beyond its monetary value. In 2023, she was an ambassador of the annual White Shirt Campaign, a partnership between the OCRF and Australian fashion brand Witchery to raise funds and awareness about ovarian cancer across the nation.
“I cannot speak highly enough of the community that I have been able to engage with as a result of being funded by the OCRF,” she says.
“To be given the opportunity to talk to different community groups, to talk to patients, to talk to families that have lost loved ones to ovarian cancer, really gives you a sense of purpose about what you’re working for … having that positive reinforcement through the community is incredible.
“I think [the OCRF] fosters, beyond just funding research, a real connection to your research and a real connection to why you’re doing [it].”
February is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month in Australia. Learn about how you can get involved and support the OCRF to fund more vital research here.
