Having too few "friendly" vaginal bacteria may increase a woman's chance of ovarian cancer, and swabs can be used to spot this, say researchers.

Axar.az reports citing BBC.

The team, led by University College London, hope the finding could be used to identify women at high risk of the cancer, which has no screening test.

However, they say that more work is needed to explore this.

It is too soon to recommend women should be given protective doses of the good bacteria, they say.

The work, which is published in the Lancet Oncology, was funded by money from the government's tampon tax, as well as grants from the EU and the Eve Appeal charity.