 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> Colon cancer is striking young patients, so any test that can detect the disease early could be a significant breakthrough, said Dr. Floriano Marchetti, an assistant professor of surgery and director of the Colon and Rectal Surgery Residency Program at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
"If such a screening test could reduce deaths from colon cancer it is very significant," Marchetti said. "A noninvasive, inexpensive blood test could get more people to be screened."
More trials are needed to prove the validity of the test, Louwagie said. Currently, the researchers hope to have a trial of some 7,000 people under way by the end of the year.
Text Continues Below
In a second study, to be presented at the meeting Monday, German researchers developed another blood test to diagnose tumors in patients with colon, rectal or gastric cancers, one they say will also predict the likelihood of metastasis.
The team, led by Ulrike Stein, from the ECRC Charite University of Medicine and the Max-Delbrueck-Centre for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, isolated RNA from the blood of patients with gastrointestinal tumors.
Blood samples were taken from 185 colon cancer patients, 190 rectal cancer patient and 91 gastric cancer patients. Samples were also taken from 51 tumor-free patients. The researchers looked for levels of S100A4 gene, which is known to be a metastasis progressor with diagnostic and prognostic relevance.
"We found that S100A4 mRNA was present at significantly higher levels in the group of cancer patients, no matter whether they had colorectal or gastric cancer, than in the tumor-free control group," Stein said in a statement. "And there were yet higher levels in the patients with metastases than in those where the disease had not yet metastasized."
In addition, patients who developed metastases later had higher S100A4 levels in their initial blood tests than those whose disease did not metastasize, Stein said. "This means that in future we might be able to identify those patients who are likely to develop metastases," she said.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >>
|
.gif)
