Blood test for early identification of colon cancer

Researchers have developed a blood test that detects the presence of fragments of mutated genes that are present in colon cancer cells. Their pilot studies provide the basis for diagnostic assays for cancer that could allow physicians to detect rumours at an early stage.

The research team was led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Bert Vogeistein at The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Vogelstein and his colleagues at Hopkins collaborated on the studies with researchers from Israelitic Hospital in Germany.

The blood test is based on a technique called BEAMing, a name derived from the principal components used in the technique <0x2014> metal beads, emulsion, amplification of DNA and magnetics. BEAMing involves attaching DNA fragments of a cancer gene from blood to metal beads and amplifying the number of copies of those fragments to a detectable level by using the polymerase chain reaction technique. The beads, with the DNA fragments tagged to denote whether they are normal or aberrant, can then be manipulated using magnetism and separated for measurement using flow cytometry.