Without a colonoscope
Stanford came up with a blood test to replace colonoscopy
Georgy Golovanov, Hi-tech+
About half of those who have to undergo an invasive examination for colon cancer, for one reason or another refuse this procedure. A blood test will solve the problem, because of which up to 40% of patients refuse to be examined.
Colon cancer is the second most lethal in the United States and poses an increasing threat worldwide. This is not because it is particularly difficult to diagnose and treat. The problem is that few people are examined to detect early signs of this type of cancer – either because of ignorance or unwillingness to tolerate colonoscopy.
Modern medicine recommends that everyone between the ages of 50 and 75 undergo a colonoscopy, but only 60-65% of people follow these tips. So far, all the efforts of doctors to increase this percentage have not been crowned with success, writes Stanford News (Stanford doctors, materials scientists hope a blood test will encourage more colon cancer screenings).
A possible solution was found by scientists from the team of Stanford Professor Wang Shen: a blood test that recognizes markers of intestinal cancer. The researchers have already developed a test that works in a scientific laboratory, and now, having received a grant, they are going to confirm the effectiveness of their approach in the real conditions of the clinic.
The essence of their method is to detect cancer-related genes in the blood, which make up only one tenth of a percent in the genetic material of the blood.
This requires very sensitive equipment, and scientists turned to magnets. They used magnetic tags that are attached to the desired genes. By taking a blood sample, doctors can pull these genes from the blood using a small magnetic field, and check them to see if a tumor is developing in the intestine.
The development of a precisely working, calibrated blood test for colon cancer will require, according to scientists, hundreds, if not thousands of samples and from five to ten years of experiments. But if the method turns out to be working, it will be a serious success for oncology.
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