Colon Cancer Blood Test
Reported September 7, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) — When caught early, patients have close to a 100 percent chance of surviving colon cancer. The only problem is, it takes an invasive colonoscopy — a test many patients dread — to catch the cancer. Now, researchers are working on an easier way to detect the disease.
With two dogs and 11 horses, it’s clear Ron Obenauf is an animal lover. But a recent health diagnosis made Obenauf wonder how much longer he’d be able to enjoy his life on the farm.
“There were times when tears would just be for no reason coming down, and I would say, ‘Why is this happening to me?'” Obenauf says.
At age 50, Obenauf asked his doctor for a colonoscopy, but he was told to wait two years. Obenauf waited, only to find out he had advanced colon cancer at age 52.
“You kind of need to understand what happens in cancer, and not rely on your doctors,” he says.
Most patients are not like Obenauf. They don’t ask for a colonoscopy. Without the test, many patients don’t know they have colon cancer until it’s too late.
“You pretty much spend a day in the bathroom before your colonoscopy, and this is really off-putting to a lot of people,” says Daniel Liebler, Ph.D., a biochemist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn.
Now, researchers are working on developing a blood test to detect colon cancer.
“The opportunity to work on this problem I regard as the chance of a lifetime,” Liebler says.
First, researchers extract different proteins from actual tumors and scan them into a database. They then compare the markers of patients who have cancer to those who don’t have cancer. The hope is in cancerous patients, the tumors leak small proteins into the blood.
It will be a few years before the test is widely available, but it could be huge for people like Obenauf.
“It would be awesome from the standpoint that it’s going to immediately save lives,” he says.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Craig Boerner
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Nashville, TN
(615) 343-7421
