Taipei - A Taiwan hospital announced Wednesday it has
discovered a blood marker for detecting metastatic cancer.
'Foreign doctors have discovered blood markers for cancer before,
but this is the first time a blood marker has been found for
metastatic cancer, or cancers that can spread to other parts of the
body,' Dr Chiang Ming-chung, a member of the research team, told the
German Press Agency dpa by phone.
'Currently, hospitals use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
ultrasound scan, X-ray and other equipment to check for cancer.
This equipment is expensive. In some backward countries, hospitals
cannot afford this equipment, so this new testing method using the
blood marker will be very helpful,' he said.
'And it is not harmful to patients and is much easier than other
tests,' he said.
Researchers at the Tung's hospital discovered the blood marker
- described only as 'a serological cancer metastatic marker' - while
doing research on a cancer-related gene.
They found there was more secretion of the serological cancer
metastatic marker in the sera of patients with metastatic cancer than
in the sera of patients with primary cancer.
So they did further study by collecting serum samples from 164
patients with various types of cancer, thus reaching the conclusion
that the blood marker is a secretory protein associated with
metastatic cancer.
Chiang said the blood marker they have found can help screen a
dozen types of cancer - including breast cancer, lung cancer, oral
cancer and colon cancer - to see if they have spread to other parts
of the body.
Tung's hospital, in Taichung County, west Taiwan, has
applied to the Department of Health (DOH) for permission to use this
new screening method on cancer patients.
The hospital has applied for patent for this blood marker in
Taiwan, the United States and some other countries.
The discovery was reported in the May issue of the
international medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &
Prevention.
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