Clinical OMICs covers a study showing ctDNA methylation markers can power colorectal cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and screening — a single marker reached 89.7% sensitivity and 86.8% specificity.
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Clinical OMICs covered a study from Huiyan Luo and colleagues in China demonstrating the potential of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) methylation markers for colorectal cancer (CRC) surveillance, diagnosis, prognosis, and screening — a less invasive alternative to colonoscopy and more sensitive than serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) testing.
Using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and cohorts of normal and CRC blood samples, the team built statistical models to identify the methylation regions most associated with CRC. A single ctDNA methylation marker yielded high sensitivity (89.7%) and specificity (86.8%) for detection of CRC and precancerous lesions in a high-risk population, and nine selected cfDNA methylation markers accurately discriminated CRC patients from normal individuals. A five-marker prognostic panel outperformed CEA status, TNM stage, and primary tumor location models.
The work underscores the value of ctDNA methylation markers — the same class of biomarkers behind Helio Genomics’ technology. See related work among our publications.
Source: Clinical OMICs. Read the full article.