With 1.93 M new cases diagnosed in 2020 and 48% mortality rate, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Most of these deaths could have been prevented by increasing the use of recommended screening tests. Furthermore, regular screening increases the likelihood that CRC will be detected at early stage, when it is more likely to be cured, treatment is less expensive, and recovery is faster. CRC screening programs are recommended to average risk healthy individuals from 50 to 75 years old (45-85 years in US), but compliance is a huge problem – only 10% of eligible population is screened in EU. Besides, the incidence of CRC in people younger than 50 years has increased. The use of new disruptive technologies and the identification of other relevant risk factors for the disease than age would help to define better CRC screening programs. There is a clear unmet need for cost-effective screening tests that improve population adherence and allow early CRC detection through a personalized and precise approach based on individual features.
The main objective of this project PreveCol is to develop, validate and commercialize a novel, non-invasive, blood-based test (PreveCol™) for the early detection of CRC and premalignant lesions called advanced adenomas (AA). PreveCol™ uses cutting-edge technology to screen healthy population, years in advance before the symptoms appear, extending people´s lives. PreveCol™ combines a novel set of biomarkers with a panel of risk factors (lifestyle, food, environmental as example) identified from individual clinical records through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data (BD) tools. The combination of the selected d risk factors with molecular biomarkers will enable PreveCol™ to identify patients with risk of developing CRC and/or AA improving their survival chances, avoiding invasive procedures while reducing healthcare costs. The commercialization of PreveCol™ will have clear impact in improving survival of patients and reducing mortality by CRC cancer, with better compliance, cost-effectiveness and significant cost savings for National Health Services.
PreveCol’s project approach will have two main goals:
1. Definition of new screening populations, by defining new criteria to be eligible not only based on age and;
2. The inclusion of the identified risk factors in PreveCol™ algorithm, increasing the accuracy of the test.
