A simple test for cancer

A simple blood test may soon be able to detect whether a patient is developing cancer, following work at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Clinical trials of the test, called 'C-Test', have commenced at the National Health Science Centre. The trial will run over the next 12 months, and will involve 1700 people from NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

The C-Test method uses a blood sample to check whether a molecule in the body associated with cancer is present. Professor Chris Parish, John Curtin School of Medical Research, said it appeared that the molecule was missing when cancers began to develop.

"The lack of this diagnostic molecule may be associated with the ability of cancers to escape the immune system and cause disease." He said the molecule was not specific to a particular type of cancer so the test had the potential to detect a broad range of cancers early in their development.

"The ability to do a broad test for cancers will be extremely important, as early detection is a major factor in determining the success of cancer treatments," Professor Parish said. "The test will also be useful for detecting the recurrence of tumours following surgery and chemotherapy."

The clinical trial will determine how sensitive C-Test is in detecting prostate, breast, lung and colo-rectal cancers, the four major causes of cancer deaths worldwide. Depending on the results of the trial, C-Test may replace or complement existing diagnostic tests.

Professor Parish said C-Test might be able to detect cancer earlier, less invasively and with a higher degree of success than other tests available. "The current test for prostate cancer is not very reliable and gives many false positives, while many women find a mammogram awkward.

"We are hopeful that C-Test will be able to improve on this and other diagnostic tests," he said. "Initial trials on animals and a small-scale study on human blood have been very promising."

Dr Noel Chambers, managing director of the research and development company Biotron, said the NHSC trial would lend credibility to the study due to their previous contracts with international pharmaceutical companies. A successful trial will mean Biotron can market C-Test immediately because diagnostic tools only require one clinical study, unlike drug treatments that require three.

C-Test uses a technique called mass spectrometry to identify the presence of the diagnostic molecule. Dr Chambers said it is an incredibly sensitive technique that many areas of pathology would be using in the future. Once C-Test is commercialised, Biotron will look at further trials to expand the types of cancer the test is able to detect and identify the specific type of cancer the subject has.

"Mass spectrometry may enable us to identify a molecular signature unique to each cancer and therefore give us a way of distinguishing between them," Professor Parish said. He said his long-term goal would be to determine the role the diagnostic molecule plays in the immune system. "There is the potential that it may even have therapeutic value, but at this stage we need to do much more research," he said.