Patent ID: 8133736

Claim:
A method of detecting ovarian cancer in a test subject comprising: (a) determining the amount of a lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine in a sample of a bodily fluid taken from the test subject; and (b) comparing the amount of the lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine in the sample of the bodily fluid from the test subject to a range of amounts of the lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine found in samples of the bodily fluid taken from a group of normal subjects of the same species as the test subject and lacking ovarian cancer; whereby a decrease of a mass spectrometer peak area ratio of lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine to internal standard of at least 0.021 in the amount of the lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine in the sample of the bodily fluid from the test subject as compared to the amount of the lysophosphatidyl ethanolamine in the samples of the bodily fluid taken from the group of normal subjects lacking ovarian cancer indicates the presence of ovarian cancer in the test subject.