Wisconsin Researchers Developing More Effective Way to Identify Cancer Early

Thursday, January 26th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(By Gaby Vinick, Wisconsin Public Radio) Some of the most deadly cancers are also among the hardest to detect before symptoms appear, but Wisconsin researchers used technology to develop what they believe could be a more effective and inexpensive way to identify cancer early.

According to Gaby Vinick with Wisconsin Public Radio, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison analyzed fragments of DNA floating outside of cells in plasma samples to test for markers of cancer.

The researchers accurately distinguished between cancer patients and healthy individuals 91 percent of the time. "We would hope that it would help us diagnose patients with cancer earlier and at a point where they can still be treated with surgery and other existing treatments that we have and cured of their disease," said Muhammed Murtaza, an associate professor of surgery at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Murtaza is also the associate director of the Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine. He led the study, published in Science Translational Medicine. The team studied sequencing data from more than 2,600 blood plasma samples from nearly 1,000 patients with one of 11 different types of cancer.

Among others, those include brain, breast, liver, lung, stomach and bile duct cancer. "By including these multiple different cancer types, I think what we've shown is that what we're measuring is relevant across cancer," Murtaza said, though there is some variation.

The test was more accurate for brain and bile duct cancer, for example, than gastric, but he said they hope to improve the results in the future by focusing on one type of cancer at a time. Even for patients with Stage 1 cancer, the model was accurate 87 percent of the time.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.