New urine test can diagnose renal cancer :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: New urine test can diagnose renal cancer

Posted by admin on Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 07:02 AM

Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have demonstrated the ability to identify renal cancer, including localized (stage I) cancer in the urine of affected patients.
These research findings were presented at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting May 8-13, 2004 in San Francisco. An early diagnosis of kidney cancer can result in curative treatment whereas the prognosis for advanced kidney cancer is poor. The challenge in diagnosing cancer early is developing an inexpensive, non-invasive, accurate and simple screening test. A urine test meets these standards. Currently, kidney cancer is diagnosed after radiographic imaging of the kidney, which may include an ultrasound, CT scan or MRI. Biopsy of a kidney mass is often difficult to interpret or may give a false negative result and therefore currently confirmation of radiographic results is primarily after surgical excision. "We used a common laboratory procedure to test the urine of 50 patients with kidney cancer. Forty-four of the 50 tests showed gene changes in the urine that were identical to the gene changes found in the tumor tissue taken at the time of surgery," explained Fox Chase molecular biologist Paul Cairns. However, when the same test was conducted on the controls, urine from people without cancer, none showed the relevant gene alterations that were found in the urine from people with cancer. "The test appears to be remarkably accurate with no false-positives in this study. In addition, one of the most impressive outcomes of this research is that the test also identified 27 of the 30 patients with stage I disease," said Robert G. Uzzo, a urologic surgeon at Fox Chase and lead author of the study. The researchers then tested the urine of 17 patients after they had surgery to remove the cancerous kidney. Mutated genes present in the urine prior to the kidney removal were not present in the urine after the kidney was removed. The researchers used a molecular DNA-based test called methylation-specific PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to detect gene alterations that initiate and fuel the onset of cancer. The test searched for six cancer specific tumor-suppressor genes that were altered, causing them to falter in their critical role of preventing errant cell growth. "In addition to early detection, differential diagnosis and surveillance, this testing could potentially be extended in the future to simultaneously provide molecular staging and prognostic information," concluded Uzzo.

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