Local Scientists Develop Early Cancer Detection Tool

DANBURY, CT — Local scientist have developed a new tool for the early detection of two "silent killer" cancers.

The breakthrough approach takes the form of a urine test for ovarian and endometrial cancer that can detect tumor DNA at the molecular level, up to ten months before they would appear on the microscopic level -- the current detection benchmark. It has been developed by Dr. John Martignetti and his colleagues at The Rudy L. Ruggles Biomedical Research Institute at the Western Connecticut Health Network in Danbury, along with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Traditionally, gynecologists have to wait until their patients are symptomatic, at which time they might perform a hysteroscopy. In that procedure, they will scrape samples from the areas in question to be analyzed in a lab.

Using the liquid biopsy process developed at WCHN, a urinalysis can detect the cancers before there are even microscopic elements of it to scrape. More work needs to be done, but all data suggest that the new test can consistently detect the signature of the DNA mutations of these gynecological cancers before they are a threat.

The case study, "Detection of Endometrial Precancer by a Targeted Gynecologic Cancer Liquid Biopsy," was published online by Cold Spring Harbor.