The Biomedical Research Gynecology group at Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) has been awarded the grant of Gynecologic Oncology and Mammary by the "https://www.dexeus.com/" Fundación Dexeus Salud de la Mujer, for the project "Salivaomics, innovative strategy to improve the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer".The aim of the project, led by Dr. Silvia Cabrera, is to identify a set of biomarkers to develop a diagnosis method for the ovarian cancer at an early stage by a saliva sample. According to the researcher, “the existence of diagnostic methods to detect ovarian cancer in the early stages of the disease would radically change the rate of healing of patients."To carry it out, VHIR researchers will do a massive sequencing of the free RNA fraction present in the saliva samples from patients in early stages of the disease (I-II) and in advanced stages (III-IV). Samples will be collected in the operating room of Gynecology of the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, where women who undergo surgical resection, the last step in the diagnostics of ovarian cancer, regularly spend. The project has received a 3,000 Euros grant, is expected to last two years and has the collaboration of Dr. David T. Wong, world leader in the field of the salivaomics in the Center for Oral/Head and Neck Oncology Research of UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles (USA). The aim is to develop, in a long-term, a diagnostic and/or a screening test, involving an industrial partner.It’s essential to develop early detection methods for the ovarian cancer because nowadays the 80% of the patients are diagnosed on the advanced stages of the disease (III-IV), where the rate of healing, in a 5 years term, is between the 30-20%, and however, when the disease is detected in the early stages (I-II), the rate increases to the 90-70%. The current method for ovarian cancer diagnosis is based on the following evidence: a pelvic exam, in which the gynecologist can tact the size and consistency of the ovaries, the determination of the levels of serum marker CA125, which is very high in the cases of advanced stages but only in the 50% of the patients in initial stages, an abdominal ultrasound, to detect suspicious masses in the ovaries, and at the end, the surgical resection, which is strictly necessary to confirm the disease by the histological study of the mass. In this last step, the surgery, only 1 in 10 women operated is diagnosed, at the end, of ovarian cancer.According to the Spanish Association Against Cancer, annually in Spain over 3,000 cases are diagnosed. Given this situation, and based on the scientific experience of the groups involved in biomarker research in biofluid samples (non-invasive and minimally invasive), VHIR researchers will conduct this project grant from the Dexeus Foundation with the aim of improving the overall survival of ovarian cancer.