"During my internship at the Gynecology department, my supervisor asked if I would be interested in PhD research. That would make her my co-promotor. I wasn’t sure at first, but I never regretted my decision. My research focused on ovarian cancer. I compared a new tumor marker, HE4, with the tumor marker that we often use today. A tumor marker is a substance that can be used to detect the presence of cancer in the blood. Approximately 50% of patients identified by the old tumor marker turned out to have benign tumors, compared to only about 20% of patients identified by the new marker. Roughly the same number of cancer patients were correctly referred to an oncology hospital, which shows that HE4 is much more precise. I was very happy when the computer displayed these results in a beautiful curve. It was all worth it. I had to take out maternity leave twice during my PhD, and asked my colleagues to continue recruiting patients. When I returned from my leave, I found a huge stack of envelopes waiting for me. It was wonderful to see how involved everyone was! I am now working as a junior doctor in the internal medicine department at Dijklander Hospital in Purmerend."
Pien Lof will defend her thesis on July 3.
This research was financially supported by Hanarth Foundation.
Optimizing the preoperative selection of patients with ovarian cancer
prof. dr. F. Amant
C.A.R. Lok & dr. D. van den Broek