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posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday February 26 2014, @09:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the Negative-never-felt-so-good dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"A paper strip can sample urine for signs of tumors in the body. The cancer-detecting strip could one day make it simpler and more affordable to detect some cancers at an early stage. Unlike communicable infections like HIV and tuberculosis, signals from tumor proteins are difficult to detect. To get around that problem, the researchers created nano-scale biomarkers that can be injected into the bloodstream. Each marker is designed to interact with specific proteins that are produced by cancer cells. When the two meet, the proteins snip off tiny fragments of the marker. Those fragments eventually find their way into the urine. The test works like a pregnancy test; a person urinates on a paper strip coated with antibodies that can detect the marker fragments. If the fragments are present, the paper displays a line indicating the presence of cancer tissue in the body. Altogether, the process takes about an hour."

[ED Note: Link is to an abstract. PDF with more detailed info here.]

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by bd on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:02PM

    by bd (2773) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:02PM (#7612)

    Doesn't this test just take bits and pieces from tumor markers already present in the bloodstream and pass them into your urine?

    So instead of taking a sample of your blood and testing that for tumor markers, they inject something into your bloodstream and then test your urine.
    I fail to see how this is actually less invasive than what is routinely done today?!

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by rob_bruce on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:17PM

    by rob_bruce (2536) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:17PM (#7623)

    I'm thinking in terms of colorectal cancer detection which usually requires a colonoscopy. Not all cancer detection tests are simply blood tests, unfortunately.