Simple urine test could lead to early diagnosis of upper gastrointestinal cancers
“The aim of this work is to enable these cancers to be diagnosed much earlier” – Dr Holger Husi
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have identified proteins in patient urine that could hold the key to early diagnosis of people of cancers of the gut, stomach and pancreas.
A simple urine test could hold the key to early diagnosis of people suffering from cancers of the gut, stomach and pancreas according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh.
Early detection
They have identified key proteins in the urine of patients with advanced cancers that could help with the detection of these cancers in people who have not yet started to show symptoms of the disease, leading to early detection and improved survival rates.
Cancer of the gut, stomach and pancreas – known as upper gastrointestinal cancers – tend to be aggressive and are often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Only around 10 percent of patients with these cancers are still alive five years after diagnosis.
The research compared urine samples from patients with upper gastrointestinal cancers with urine samples from people who were cancer-free.
Six proteins
Scientists identified six particular proteins, which were present in 98 per cent of the cancer cases, but absent in almost 90 percent of samples from patients without cancer.
The researchers then narrowed molecules down to the two proteins – S100A6 and S1009 – most likely to appear in samples from patients with cancer but absent from the other samples. The scientists now intend to see whether people with early stage cancers, which have not yet been diagnosed, have the same levels of proteins present.
Dr Holger Husi, of the University of Edinburgh's Tissue Injury and Repair Group, said: "The aim of this work is to enable these cancers to be diagnosed much earlier. This would help us to treat the cancer before it has a chance to spread.
“The majority of these cancers are currently diagnosed late where no surgery is possible due to its advanced stage. Earlier diagnosis would mean that curative surgery or chemotherapy would be possible for more patients."
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