A diagnosis of cancer often involves a type of surgery, an invasive biopsyA medical procedure in which a sample of tissue is removed for examination. Biopsies can range from a small sample drawn into a needle to samples taken during more invasive surgery. procedure. That may not be the case for long.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a new method that is able its ability to diagnose patients even in early stages of cancer. Their method looks at genetic material, DNAAbbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid. Composed of very long strings of nucleotides, which are abbreviated as A, C, G and T. DNA is the storage form of our genetic material. All of the instructions for the production of proteins are encoded in our DNA. , released from cancer cells. Their method, called Targeted Error Correction Sequencing (TEC-Seq), is both sensitive (able to find tiny amounts of DNA) and specific (it only identifies cancer DNA). In a group of 200 patients tested, more than half of early stage (stage I and II) colorectal, breast, lung and ovarian cancer patients were diagnosed accurately using TEC-Seq.
Although noninvasive blood biopsy methods still require validation through large studies, genetic tools such as TEC-Seq may allow for early intervention and treatment of cancer, reducing cancer related illness and death in the future.
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