Tracing Cancer in the Blood
Cancer diagnosis in a blood droplet?
© Andrea Kahlich, DKFZ
A blood test which facilitates early and reliable detection of a tumor disease in a person: This would make it possible to detect many cancers at a stage when they are still curable.
Searching for such a test, researchers have now found a clue in what are called microRNAs. They found significantly differing levels of these molecules in tumor patients compared to healthy persons. The team consisted of researchers from all over Germany including a group headed by Dr. Jörg Hoheisel of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ). They have now published their results in Nature Methods.
Andreas Keller et al.: Towards discovering the blood-borne miRNome of human diseases. Nature Methods 2011, DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1682
Press release of Wuerzburg University: