Promising results from a new blood test that can aid in the early identification of patients with colon cancer will be presented at Europe’s largest cancer congress, in Berlin today.
The test will make colon cancer detection simpler, cost-effective, and more acceptable to patients than current methods, the researchers say.
In the study, Dr Joost Louwagie, from the company OncoMethylome Sciences, headquartered in Li?ge, Belgium, will present data on the way in which tumour markers for colorectal cancer were selected, the analytical performance of the test and the first results from a multi-centre feasibility study. “This test has potential to provide a better balance of performance, cost-effectiveness and patient compliance than other options currently available for colorectal cancer screening,” he says.
Colorectal cancer occurs in approximately one in every 17 people during their lifetime and is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States and Europe; in these places a combined total of about 560,000 people develop the disease each year, and 250,000 die from it. Deaths can be reduced if the cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, when it is most treatable. Although there are already two effective screening methods, they both have drawbacks.
Colonoscopy, where the interior of the colon and rectum is examined using a tiny camera mounted on a flexible tube, is the most sensitive test currently available and has the benefit of allowing removal of pre-cancerous polyps. Colonoscopy, however, is invasive, expensive, requires bowel preparation and skilled practitioners, making it inaccessible or unacceptable for many patients.
Faecal occult blood testing (FOBT), where patients give stool samples to be analysed, is less invasive, inexpensive and is used in national screening programmes in some European countries. However, due to patients’ reluctance to handle stool samples, compliance for even the best-organised national screening programs is often less than 50%.
“Once validated in a prospective colorectal screening trial, the new methylation test could be used as a non-invasive screening option for patients who decline or do not have access to colonoscopy or do not wish to undertake the faecal occult blood test,” says Dr Louwagie.
Source: European CanCer Organisation, Germany