Breast Cancer Test Discovered

[Dr.Noora]

Hopes are high that a new test discovered in Dublin may become an early warning sign for breast cancer.

The new blood test was discovered accidentally by Dublin City University neuroscientist, Brendan O’Connor. It can detect extremely low levels of a protein in the blood that is a “marker” for early stage breast cancer. It could avoid the need for surgical biopsies to test for cancer.

The test is already being trialled by Ireland’s breast cancer screening programme, BreastCheck. If the early promise delivers, the test could be performed in about 15 minutes in doctors’ surgeries or in clinics like Vhi SwiftCare.

“I came across this blood test by accident like so many scientific discoveries,” said Mr O’Connor. “I was tracing enzymes in the brain that also appeared in blood, when I discovered this protein. When they kept turning up it was an annoyance to begin with, but when I found out the significance of this protein in early stage breast cancer, it became clear that the blood test could be a potential diagnostic assay for the disease.”

Sera Scientific, a Dublin City University spin-off enterprise, has developed and patented the new test, called SeraPro™.

 

[Sumayya]

That was very interesting sis. Noora. Can you tell me have they allready started to test and how many ppl were tested?. And after screening the samples what kind of detection do they use?.

[Dr.Noora]

Yess sis Sumaya they have tessted in 116 women and they found that women whose tumours have high levels of a protein known as BAG-1 have a better chance of living disease-free for longer and living longer overall.

Women with high levels of the protein in their breast tumours had a 10 year survival rate of 81%, compared to a 50% chance of living 10 years for women with low levels, according to research led by Jefferson University, Philadelphia.

Dr.Noora