Colorectal Cancer: Early Screening Could Save Your Life
Colorectal cancer (CRC), including colon and rectum cancer, is the third most common cancer in the world and the third in the US as well. American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that there are 97,220 and 43,030 new cases in 2018 for colon and rectum cancer, respectively. Different from some other types of cancers, death from CRC is 100% preventable if the disease is diagnosed at early stages.
The guideline from ACS for CRC screening suggest to start at age 50 (recently revised to 45). According to the statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 66.2% of the U.S. population from age 50 to 75 did CRC screening in 2014 and this number grew to 67.3% in 2016, representing increase of 3.3 million people for the testing.
CRC screening and diagnosis can be done either through stool test or visual exams of colon and rectum. A recent new stool test, ColoGuard®, approved by the FDA in 2014, is a molecular test for gene mutations and modifications (methylation). Different than the gold standard, colonoscopy, molecular diagnostic testing does not need tedious and even intimidating preparation before the test, and not to worry about possible bleeding and infection due to medical complication.
We recently developed ColoScape™ CRC mutation detection kit using our proprietary XNA technology. The feature of the detection kit:
- Is in the research use only (RUO) or CE/IVD-mark format.
- Identifies mutations commonly occurred in CRC using qPCR instruments commonly available.
- Uses liquid biopsy (blood) or Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) samples, rather than stool samples, which need complex DNA extraction procedure in centralized labs.
- Has a detection limit as low as 0.1% of tumor DNA among the normal cell DNA.
Watch our webinar to learn more about Coloscape™ CRC detection kit from experts. You can read this recent review on CRC, including molecular biology and genetic perspective, molecular targeted therapies and immunotherapies.
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