The test can also detect the pre-cancerous growths with 54% sensitivity.
Colonoscopies are the gold standard for colorectal cancer screening.
Not only can a provider find and diagnose cancerous growths, but they can also remove pre-cancerous polyps.
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The challenge comes when we have patients who dont want to take the colonoscopy, she told Verywell.
Perhaps they dont want to undergo that extensive two-day prep and a procedure.
Then there are some patients who are on blood thinners where a colonoscopy is technically challenging.
Thats when we have to look for alternatives like Cologuard, and now the Universal DX test.
Researchers can link these fragments of genetic code to certain types of cancer.
The company will report back a positive or negative result.
To test the screening tool, researchers analyzed blood samples from nearly 1,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe.
The participants received a colonoscopy or colonic surgery for primary colorectal cancer soon after.
The researcher compared the results from the blood test to the cancer and pre-cancers detected during the procedures.
While most of these growths remain harmless, some become malignant.
Clinicians usually consider an advanced adenoma to be a precursor to cancer and have them removed.
The Signal-C test catches advanced adenomas in about 54% of the tests.
When experienced providers perform colonoscopies, they tend to correctly identify advanced adenomas in 89% of patients.
[Colonoscopy] is not just diagnostic, its also therapeutic, Maqsood said.
The lesion never gets a chance to become a cancer.
Thats how we will decrease cancer incidence.
A Blood-Based Test Expands Screening Options
Colonoscopies require patients to do someprep-work.
Others may choose it for the convenience.
I think it would be a good idea to target those people who dont have regular access to care.
Developing a colorectal cancer blood test could lay the groundwork for other, more universal cancer tests.
What This Means For You
Colorectal screening tests may not be right for every patient.
2021;325(19):1978-1998. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.4417
