The Bio Mark Company, an Israeli firm, has developed a blood test that can detect colon cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, while tests to detect the cancer have improved over recent years, some 50,000 Americans will die of colon cancer annually.
Bio Mark is working to change things, reporting its blood test has a success rate of 80%, detecting polyps that grow in the colon and become cancerous. While the blood test is expected to receive FDA approval within a year, it will not be a replacement for a colonoscopy. Nevertheless, it can detect early stages of the cancer in people who have not had preliminary screening.
The company’s CEO, David Solomon explains “Only about 40% of Americans go for the screening test whereas about one quarter of all people over the age of 50 harbors polyps in the intestine. Polyps are what lead to cancer in about 95% of cases of all colon cancers. Doctors prefer to remove polyps before cancer develops”.
(Israel21c.org)
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5 Responses
Thank gd for the yiddisha kop.
How about the Bio Mark or some other Company, develop foods, or herbs that may help shrink pre cancerous polyps? Or is it sickness and disease generates $$$$$… Prevention on the other hand is perceived as Quaker y, with no return policy for the Oncologist or Hospital.
At 80% this test will do more harm than good. People will hear about it and the number of people to forego a colonscopy will increase thereby causing more death. I would never recommend anybody to use this as a screening test, perhaps the medical community can use this as a monitoring test for people being treated for colon cancer. If people are scared of the colonoscope, they can go for a virtual colonscopy which is an imaging test.
3, I would second that were it not for the recent release of a study saying that colonoscopies miss something like 30% of cancers. Still, my gut (pun intended) tells me that colonoscopies are still the gold standard, and as you mention there are new improved forms.
To #5,
Please don’t quote studies if you don’t name them. I don’t know what you mean by “miss 30% of cancers”. I just looked up studies for both virtual & optical colonscopies and both have studies with over 90% sensitivity (Def.- if you see anything like a polyp).