Isaac Kinde, Chetan Bettegowda, Yuxuan Wang, Jian Wu, Nishant Agrawal, Ie-Ming Shih, Robert Kurman, Fanny Dao, Douglas A Levine, Robert Giuntoli, Richard Roden, James R Eshleman, Jesus Paula Carvalho, Suely Kazue Nagahashi Marie, Nickolas Papadopoulos, Kenneth W Kinzler, Bert Vogelstein, Luis A Diaz
Papanicolaou (Pap) smears have revolutionized the management of patients with cervical cancers by permitting the detection of early, surgically curable tumors and their precursors. In recent years, the traditional Pap smear has been replaced by a liquid-based method, which allows not only cytologic evaluation but also collection of DNA for detection of human papillomavirus, the causative agent of cervical cancer. We reasoned that this routinely collected DNA could be exploited to detect somatic mutations present in rare tumor cells that accumulate in the cervix once shed from endometrial or ovarian cancers...
January 9, 2013: Science Translational Medicine