The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on a UC San Diego-led blood test that detects liver cancer early via DNA methylation — reaching an AUC of 0.969 versus 0.816 for AFP.
Featured in The San Diego Union-Tribune. By Bradley J. Fikes.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on a newly developed blood test that can catch liver cancer at an early stage — improving the odds of survival — developed by a team led by University of California San Diego scientists and published in Nature Materials. The test looks for changes in gene activity caused by DNA methylation, which turns genes on or off without altering the underlying DNA sequence.
Based on 1,098 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and 835 healthy controls, the new blood test achieved an AUC of 0.969 for detection of biopsy-confirmed liver cancer — substantially higher than alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), the most common existing blood test, at 0.816. Notably, 40% of the liver-cancer patients in the study had a normal AFP level. Early detection matters: per the National Cancer Institute, five-year survival is 31.1% for localized liver cancer, 10.7% once it has spread regionally, and 2.8% for distant spread.
“My lab has been working on all solid tumor cancers. Our next targets are lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer — these are the cancers that are causing major deaths worldwide.”
This foundational ctDNA-methylation research is among the science that underpins Helio Genomics’ liver-cancer detection technology; the study is listed among our publications.
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune, on research published in Nature Materials. Read the full article.