Potential use of DNA methylation in cervical swabs for early ovarian cancer diagnosis

None of the statistical methods applied identified CpG loci capable of diagnosing ovarian cancer with sufficient specificity and sensitivity. We conclude that methylation differences observed do not adequately distinguish between benign and malignant ovarian disease. The variations attributable to clinical conditions are likely obscured by the differences in cell composition, which is the primary source of sample heterogeneity. Therefore, we suggest that diagnostic tools should not rely on local methylation profile of the cervix but rather focus on detecting cancer-specific sequences transferred from the tumor site and present in cervical swabs. Ovarian cancer is difficult to detect early, and we aimed to explore whether DNA methylation in cervical swabs could serve as a diagnostic tool. However, our study found that methylation patterns in these samples do not reliably distinguish between benign and malignant conditions, likely due to variations in cell composition. We recommend future research focus on detecting tumor-specific DNA sequences in cervical swabs instead.