September 2024 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 9
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UCL reveals blood tests could improve early cancer diagnosis
Researchers from University College London have found that common routine blood tests could be used to speed up and improve early cancer diagnosis for patients in a new study.
Researchers analysed data from more than 400,000 people aged 30 or older in the UK who had visited a GP due to stomach pain from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, collected between 2007 and 2016, and from more than 50,000 who had visited their GP due to bloating – two-thirds of whom had blood tests following their appointment.
The team found abnormal results in 19 commonly used blood tests were linked to a higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer within a year – one in 50 people who reported stomach pain, as well as bloating, to a GP were diagnosed with cancer within 12 months.
If taken into account, researchers estimated that there would have been a 16% increase in the number of people with undiagnosed cancer who were given an urgent referral versus assessments based on symptoms, age and sex.
In addition, the risk of cancer was estimated to be 3.1% for men and women in their 60s reporting stomach pain and 8.6% and 6.1% for men and women in their 80s.
In contrast, people aged 30 to 59 years with abdominal pain or bloating, anaemia, low albumin, raised platelets, abnormal ferritin and increased inflammatory markers strongly predicted a risk of undiagnosed cancer, of which only raised platelets and anaemia are currently included in guidelines for cancer referral.
Study reveals genetic variants are more common in Parkinson’s disease patients
A US study supported by the Parkinson’s Foundation has revealed that genetic variants associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are more common than researchers previously thought.
The PD GENEration study has been testing for clinically relevant PD-related genes while providing genetic counselling at no cost for people living with the condition since 2019, and recently reached a recruitment milestone of more than 15,000 patients.
PD is a neurodegenerative condition in which parts of the brain become progressively damaged, causing problems such as shaking and stiffness.
Results from the first 3.5 years of the study showed that 13% of patients have a genetic form of PD and revealed that positivity rates for a genetic variant were significantly higher for individuals at high risk of developing PD.
Those with early-onset PD, high risk-ancestry such as Ashkenazi Jewish, Spanish Basque, or North African Berber, or with first-degree relatives affected by the disease had an 18% positivity rate.
In addition, a total of 7.7% of patients carried a GBA1 genetic mutation, which greatly reduces or eliminates the activity of lysosomal acid glucosylceramidase in cells, while 2.1% and 2.4% of participants carried a PRKN genetic mutation.
This gene provides instructions for making a protein called parkin, which plays a role in the cell machinery, and a LRRK2 genetic mutation, which provides instructions for making a protein called dardarin, which has enzyme function known as kinase activity, respectively.
HOT & NOT
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, along with commercial collaborators Optima Partners and Biogen, have revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) insights can predict a person’s disease’s development a decade in advance.
Using AI and machine learning tools to identify protein patterns in the blood, researchers have been able to predict the development of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), heart disease and type 2 diabetes prior to diagnosis.
A new class of ‘magnetic vine robots’, which have the potential to transform cancer diagnosis and treatment for patients, has emerged. Engineers, scientists and clinicians from the University of Leeds’s STORM Lab and Future Manufacturing Processes Research Group, in collaboration with the University of California San Diego’s Morimoto Lab, developed the technology.
The vine robots with magnetic skin have the ability to grow as they move and squeeze through gaps almost 40% thinner than their resting diameter.
Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have revealed how cells ‘raise the alarm’ when acids leak out of their compartments if damaged or infected with bacteria or a virus, which could be useful in developing new drugs.
The study revealed that one protein known as V1H, which brings in machinery required for autophagy – the degradation of parts of the cell – is involved in this process.
Researchers from King’s College London’s School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging sciences, along with partners at the University of Michigan, the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale in Paris, Norway and Germany, are using shear waves to map blood vessel structures to improve treatments for tumours and other medical conditions. Findings could improve cancer treatment and potentially improve drug delivery while helping researchers better understand tumours.
Over one million NHS treatments and appointments in England have been cancelled due to staff strike action.
NHS England reported the figure following recent action by consultants and junior doctors. The actual extent of the disruption is likely even greater, as many hospitals reduce bookings on strike days to minimise last-minute cancellations. There are renewed calls to find a solution to the long-standing dispute.
A new policy review produced by cancer doctors and experts from across the UK, including King’s College London, has revealed the biggest cancer challenges facing the new UK government.
The review highlights that the time-critical issues impacting the delivery of cancer care services by the NHS should be urgently addressed via a comprehensive national cancer control plan. It is estimated that there are more than three million people living in the UK with cancer, according to Macmillan Cancer Support.
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