INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
How the biomarker works
What you need is just a small amount of blood from which we measure the amount of a protein in it, and then we assess the pattern of that abundance of the protein in the blood, and we can estimate the risk level of future liver cancer they recommend.
What we can tell is the probability of cancer development. For example, you will develop cancer at 50% of probability at five years.
We are refining the biomarker. We are making progress to reach the highest accuracy.
The need for the biomarker
Liver cancer is now the fastest-rising cause of cancer death in the U.S.
Also, we are facing a massive increase of patients with fatty liver with the epidemic of diabetes. There's a study estimating that up to one-fourth of the global population is affected by fatty liver, which can progress into liver cancer. So practically, it's impossible to monitor that huge number of individuals.
Therefore, we really need a major tool to identify the small subset of patients who really need close attention to diagnose liver cancer at an early stage and treat it with effective therapy.
Does the difficulty in detecting liver cancer early contribute to the low survival rate of that disease?
We think so because there is no symptom at the beginning of the liver cancer development and then when the patients develop symptoms, it’s too late. The treatment options have been limited and not curative.
When the risk assessment is ready for use with patients, will this increase the chances of early detection?
Increasing the chance of early detection is the one primary benefit. Another appealing use is to guide who could be a good target for a new medicine to reduce the cancer risk. There has been active research also to develop new drugs to reduce liver cancer risk.
RESOURCES:
Interview highlights were lightly edited for clarity.
Got a tip? Email Sam Baker at sbaker@kera.org. You can follow Sam on Twitter @srbkera.
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