Body fluid analysis promises early cancer diagnosis
Development of an accurate body fluids analysis test for cancer could mean a reduction in costly scans and time-demanding histological tests following biopsy. Accurate monitoring following diagnosis also means that evaluation of therapeutic regimes to determine the most effective options can be determined online. The ′Glycans in body fluids - potential for disease diagnostics′ (Glyfdis) project aimed to develop novel integrated diagnostic tools for diagnosis and monitoring of cancerous states based on glycome analysis of blood samples. Cancer-associated changes in the glycome, the complement of sugar molecules including complex saccharides, in tumour tissue are very common. As a single-marker test for a cancer is highly unrealistic, the Glyfdis researchers established a bioinformatics base to analyse a range of methods designed to identify an array of biomarkers. The resulting bioinformatics pipeline was based on the support vector machines algorithm combined with another algorithm specifically developed for Glyfdis. Project researchers analysed glycome samples taken from stomach and pancreatic cancers. Total deaths from these cancers worldwide reached the million mark in 2007. Project results have provided a significant data platform and some markers are expected to qualify for intellectual property (IP) application.
