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Posted on Sep 25, 2009, 6 a.m.
Quicker identification of patients with bowel and stomach cancers, as well as rapid, population-wide screening for these types of tumors.
Research teams in Belgium and Germany have discovered new blood tests that may more rapidly and accurately diagnose gastrointestinal cancers. Joost Louwagie, from OncoMethylome Sciences (Belgium), and colleagues used DNA tests to identify patterns of methylation, a process by which genes are switched off and which is often linked to tumor progression. A German-based group from ECRC Charite University of Medicine and the Max-Delbrück-Centre for Molecular Medicine, found a genetic marker associated with the spread of cancer cells in RNA molecules; they submit that the marker not only more readily enables diagnosis of colon, rectal of gastric tumors, but may be valuable in predicting the likelihood of metastatic disease.
