Ovarian Cancer: New Rapid Diagnostic Tests To Detect Ovarian Cancer More Accurately Developed By Scientist From Finland
Source: Ovarian Cancer Sep 12, 2020 4 years, 3 months, 1 week, 2 days, 20 hours, 34 minutes ago
Ovarian Cancer: Researchers from Finland have developed a new quantitative lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) of aberrantly glycosylated CA125 which is widely superior to the conventional CA125 immunoassay (CA125IA). The new diagnostic was also faster and much more accurate than current conventional CA125 test.
With a 30 min read-out time, the LFIA showed 72% sensitivity, at 98% specificity using diagnostically challenging samples with marginally elevated CA125 (35–200 U/mL), in comparison to 16% sensitivity with the CA125IA.
The research findings were published in Nature’s Journal of Communications Biology.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01191-x
The CA125 antigen, a plasma membrane glycoprotein found in the tissues of the female reproductive tract, is commonly used for the detection of ovarian cancer but works poorly on its own in identifying early stage cancers.
The researchers from Finland found that the cancer specificity can be improved significantly when CA125 detection is combined with targeting aberrant sugar structures in the tumour.
The research goal of the research group led by Professor Kim Pettersson at the University of Turku, Finland, was to develop novel tests that use the detection of modified sugar structures from the cancer tissue.
The research group developed this rapid and sensitive point-of-care diagnostic test that can detect ovarian cancer from the patient's blood sample.
It was found that aberrant sugar structures can be used in early cancer diagnostics.
The new diagnostics that is an easy-to-run and rapid test developed in the study, ovarian cancer can be more accurately detected from a blood sample in 30 minutes. The technologies of the Biotechnology unit at the Department of Biochemistry, as well as their expertise in label technology and rapid tests, were widely used in this study.
Dr Sherif Bayoumy, the first author of the study said, "When compared with the conventional CA125 diagnostics, the sensitivity of the new test was 4.5 times higher in detecting ovarian cancer."
The research aim was to expand further on these promising results to cover a larger group of patients and other cancers. The goal is to develop rapid tests for clinical use to facilitate to proceed to further examinations and treatment options.
Dr Kim Pettersson, Professor, University of Turku commented, “The study results are extremely promising for early cancer diagnostics. We are currently studying the functionality of similar approaches in other cancers. Detecting the disease as early as possible is extremely important when it comes to, for example, pancreatic cancer."
The researchers plan to expand the usage of the aberrant sugar structures to develop other cancer diagnostics including for breast cancer.
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