Submitted by Livia Harriman on Wed, 31/05/2023 - 12:42
A review in Nature Reviews Urology reveals common blood test markers used to diagnose cancers affecting young people have a high rate of false positives.
The Murray and Coleman groups, with Senior Research Associate Dr Cinzia Scarpini, have just published a review of an article assessing current blood test markers used to follow patients diagnosed with a malignant germ cell tumour (GCT), one of the most common cancers affecting young people.
The team demonstrated that the current tests used in the clinic have a 16% rate of 'false positive' events—when levels are elevated, but there is no evidence of cancer. This leads to further investigations that are unnecessary and costly.
Furthermore, the 'true positive' events (i.e. the tests being elevated at cancer recurrence) only occurred in less than half of all cases.
The team concluded that new biomarkers must be brought to the clinic. It highlighted that circulating microRNA testing (testing for short pieces of genetic code in the bloodstream) might provide the answer.
To that end, Dr Scarpini is playing a critical role in driving the development and performance assessment of microRNA testing, that our team identified and developed, in this setting in international clinical trials.'
The article Serum tumour markers for testicular cancer recurrence by Murray, M.J., Scarpini, C.G. & Coleman, N. in Nat Rev Urol (2023) is available here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-023-00782-7
Professor Matthew Murray
Matthew is a university professor and honorary consultant paediatric oncologist, working at both the Department of Pathology and the Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
His research programme studies the clinical and molecular aspects of children’s tumours, in particular germ cell tumours (GCTs), and he was the first to demonstrate the utility of specific circulating microRNAs for diagnosis, disease monitoring and detection of relapse in this disease.