Ovarian Tumor Associated Hydroxyapatite: A Potential Biomarker For Predicting Treatment Outcome

Objectives: The treatment of ovarian cancer may require surgery and/or chemotherapy. However, ovarian cancer lacks the availability of biomarkers and tools that can help predict which patients may benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy first versus surgery, identify sites of disease, inform treatment interventions, and determine the effectiveness of treatment. Hydroxyapatite (HAP), Ca10(PO4)6OH2, has been shown to be directly produced by some types of malignancies via a classical mechanism. We have shown that HAP-binding targeting radiotracers, such as FDA-approved 18F-labeled sodium fluoride (18F-NaF), used with positron emission tomography (PET) imaging detect breast tumors. In this work, we aimed at investigating whether HAP is present in the extracellular matrix of patients with ovarian cancer and whether 18F-NaF PET can reliably detect peritoneal tumors in mouse models.