Colorectal cancer is a common disease (causing around 500,000 deaths each year worldwide), and screening methods that are more reliable than colonoscopy and faecal-blood assessment are needed for earlier disease detection. Nicholas Coleman and colleagues from the MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Cambridge, UK, aim to develop a non-invasive, stool-based assessment that can identify a specific protein - minichromosome maintenance protein 2 (MCM2) - which is present in cancerous colorectal cells but not normal cells.
In a clinical study, the investigators detected MCM2-positive cells from 37 of 40 patients known to have colorectal cancer; there was no detection of the protein in any of the 25 healthy individuals (the control group).
Nicholas Coleman comments: "These findings suggest that detection of MCM2 in colonocytes retrieved from the faecal surface might be of value in the non-invasive diagnosis of malignant colorectal disease. The conditions of this study do not represent those of a general screening setting, and our findings might have differed in a population with a higher frequency of cancers of the right-side of the colon. Nevertheless, despite the requirement for rapid stool processing, our approach might ultimately prove suitable for population screening, either alone or in combination with other tests."
Contact: Dr Nicholas Coleman, MRC Cancer Cell Unit, Hutchison/MRC Research Centre, Cambridge CB2 2XZ, UK; T) +44 (0)1223 763285; M) +44 (0)7900 596465; F) +44 (0)1223 763284; E) nc109@cam.ac.uk
Journal
The Lancet