Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, with 18.1 million new cases diagnosed in 2018 alone (Cancer Statistics - NCI, 2015). However, recent advances have made it possible to detect cancer early on using specific biomarkers that are excreted in urine called Glycosaminoglycan. These biomarkers are negatively charged polysaccharide compounds that are found in every mammalian cell (Casale & Crane, 2022). They are usually responsible for promoting cell growth and proliferation, two functions that cancers typically take advantage of. The fascinating part of these molecules is their wide diversity across cell types. Through the study of urine output from known cancer patients and healthy individuals, it was found that these GAGs expressed differently between those diagnosed in stage 1 cancers vs those healthy individuals (Bratulic et al., 2022). More importantly, though, this study also found that patterns of expression in GAG could indicate what type of cancer and its location in the body to approximately 74.3% (Bratulic et al., 2022).
While this score
does mean that there is a risk for overdiagnosis of cancer as well as under-diagnosis,
early detection of cancer could contribute significantly towards treatment
outcomes for the patient. Early detection has been associated with better
outcomes for the patient (Rock et al., 2020). Better yet this new method
is non-invasive for the patient, meaning it would be able to detect cancer
without ever having to cut open the patient or expose them to any radiation.
Overall this new technology is exciting and it will be interesting to watch how
it develops.
Primary Source:
Bratulic, S., Limeta, A.,
Dabestani, S., Birgisson, H., Enblad, G., Stålberg, K., Hesselager, G.,
Häggman, M., Höglund, M., Simonson, O. E., Stålberg, P., Lindman, H.,
Bång-Rudenstam, A., Ekstrand, M., Kumar, G., Cavarretta, I., Alfano, M.,
Pellegrino, F., Mandel-Clausen, T., … Gatto, F. (2022). Noninvasive detection
of any-stage cancer using free glycosaminoglycans. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(50),
e2115328119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115328119
Bibilogropy:
Bratulic, S., Limeta, A., Dabestani, S., Birgisson, H., Enblad, G.,
Stålberg, K., Hesselager, G., Häggman, M., Höglund, M., Simonson, O. E.,
Stålberg, P., Lindman, H., Bång-Rudenstam, A., Ekstrand, M., Kumar, G.,
Cavarretta, I., Alfano, M., Pellegrino, F., Mandel-Clausen, T., … Gatto, F.
(2022). Noninvasive detection of any-stage cancer using free
glycosaminoglycans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America, 119(50), e2115328119.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115328119
Cancer
Statistics—NCI (nciglobal,ncienterprise). (2015, April
2). [CgvArticle]. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics
Casale, J.,
& Crane, J. S. (2022). Biochemistry, Glycosaminoglycans. In StatPearls.
StatPearls Publishing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544295/
Rock, C.
L., Thomson, C., Gansler, T., Gapstur, S. M., McCullough, M. L., Patel, A. V.,
Andrews, K. S., Bandera, E. V., Spees, C. K., Robien, K., Hartman, S.,
Sullivan, K., Grant, B. L., Hamilton, K. K., Kushi, L. H., Caan, B. J., Kibbe,
D., Black, J. D., Wiedt, T. L., … Doyle, C. (2020). American Cancer Society
guideline for diet and physical activity for cancer prevention. CA: A Cancer
Journal for Clinicians, 70(4), 245–271.
https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21591
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