Single Stool Test Could Identify Cancer in Several GI Organs
According to Mayo Clinic researchers, noninvasive stool DNA testing can detect not only early-stage colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps (as demonstrated in previous Mayo Clinic research), but lesions and cancer throughout the gastrointestinal (GI) tract as well.
Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist David Ahlquist, MD, and fellow researchers sought to determine whether stool samples could reveal gene mutations. Technicians obtained stool samples from 70 healthy people and 70 people with cancers at various sites throughout the digestive tract—throat, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, bile duct, gallbladder, and small bowel. The investigators targeted DNA from cells that are continuously shed from the surfaces of these cancers.
The stool DNA test yielded positive results in nearly 70% of the digestive cancers Specifically, it identified:
• 100% of colorectal and stomach cancers
• 75% of bile duct cancers and gallbladder cancers
• 65% of esophageal cancers
• 62% of pancreatic cancers.
Moreover, the test remained negative for all the healthy participants, indicating that such a testing approach is feasible.
Dr Ahlquist described as “enormous” the potential impact of the changes these findings could set in motion. “Historically, we’ve approached cancer screening one organ at a time,” he explained in a statement describing the trial results, which were presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2009 meeting in Chicago (held May 30 – June 4). “Stool DNA testing could shift the strategy of cancer screening to multi-organ, whole-patient testing and could also open the door to early detection of cancers above the colon which are currently not screened.”
The researchers hope that the next generation of tests will be more accurate, more affordable, faster to process, easier for patients to use, and able to predict the tumor site so that diagnostic studies can be better directed and unnecessary procedures avoided.
- Michelle
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