Screening for ovarian cancer is ruled out after trial found it did not reduce deaths

A large trial of annual screening tests for ovarian cancer showed they did not reduce deaths despite picking up cancers earlier,1 ruling out the possibility of a national population screening programme.

The UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS), led by UCL researchers, looked at data from more than 200 000 women who were aged 50-74, and followed them up for an average of 16 years. The women were randomly allocated to one of three groups: no screening, …