New test for detecting colon cancer could save thousands of patients | Healthy

It took researchers from the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Erasmus MC and Amsterdam UMC ten years to develop and test the new test. But the results are promising. If the new test were used in the current population screening for colon cancer, it could ensure that 21 percent fewer people develop colon cancer and 18 percent fewer people die from the disease.

About 12,000 Dutch people get colon cancer every year. About a third of them die from this disease. Because colon cancer is so common, there is already a population survey for people between the ages of 55 and 75. Every two years they receive a call to have their stool checked. The screening is already successful: about fifteen percent fewer people get colon cancer than before the introduction of the population screening.

But with a new test the result can be even better. The current test checks whether a specific protein is present in the stool. Researchers discovered that two other proteins are good predictors of the disease and added them to the new test.

Last year, around 13,000 participants in the population survey were sent home with two tubes in which they had to collect a small amount of stool. An analysis shows that the new test mainly detects more patients with a pre-stage of colon cancer, often a large polyp. “You can usually easily remove this with keyhole surgery. This way you prevent people from developing colon cancer and having to undergo surgery,” says researcher Gerrit Meijer of the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.

Because the new test detects more pre-stages of colon cancer, more people will also have to undergo a visual examination. “Detection will indeed become more expensive, but those extra costs outweigh what you save in illness and treatment,” says Meijer. And then we’re not even talking about all the suffering that patients are spared.

Even though the results are good, it will certainly take several years before the new test is ready for large-scale use in a population study. Ultimately, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport decides on the introduction.