The Role of In Vitro Diagnostics in Cancer Early Detection And Treatment

Cancer, with increasing incidence and mortality globally, has become the second leading cause of death. But fortunately, the survival rate is obviously growing with effective prevention, screening, early detection measures, and prompt anti-cancer treatment. The earlier cancers are detected with efficient diagnostic measures, the better treatment outcomes could be anticipated.

In vitro diagnostics (IVDs), which can collect, prepare, or examine specimens like blood, serum, urine, spinal fluid, and tissue samples removed from humans, play an important role in providing essential data and helping make early decisions for cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment.

IVD for Cancer Screening and Early Diagnosis

It's estimated that about 30% to 50% of human cancers can be prevented and several of them can be screened with IVD devices. Thus, researchers are dedicated to developing diagnostic pathology techniques and discovering potential fluid biomarkers for cancer diagnosis. IVD cancer screening techniques, including cytology, surgical pathology, flow cytometry, and molecular testing, are frequently used to test blood, urine, DNA so that cancer can be detected before symptoms appear. Usually, cancer cells could make a higher amount of proteins or other substances than normal cells, which are distributed in the blood, urine, stool, or other bodily fluids of cancer patients. For example, Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a screening biomarker for the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Moreover, since cancers are a class of diseases caused by gene changes that change the function, growth, and division of cells, genomic markers are increasingly recognized as tumor markers in pathological diagnostics and fluid testings. By techniques like immunoassays using antibodies, these biomarkers can be detected to indicate tumor gene mutations, the gene expression pattern of tumor cells, and non-genetic changes in the tumor's DNA.

Development of Cancer Diagnostics

Though novel and potential biomarkers are continuously been discovered for cancer diagnosis, not all of them can be practically applied in clinical cancer diagnostics. The establishment of a specific biomarker in diagnostic assay development involves biomarkers discovery, translational research, developing the biomarkers into diagnostic assays, clinical trials, and more. The development of cancer diagnostics requires researchers to go through the entire process with the potential biomarker so that the IVD assay could be used in the clinical diagnosis of cancer with robust and reproducible outcomes.

IVD for Cancer Treatment

Besides being of vital importance in cancer early detection and diagnosis, in vitro diagnostics also are a significant part of the whole cancer treatment and care pathway. IVD technologies offer non-invasive approaches to identify cancer biomarkers, the result of which can be used to guide the plan of treating cancers and monitor the treatment responses. For instance, monoclonal antibodies and BRAF inhibitors for cancers, such as metastatic melanoma, are novel and innovative targeted therapies in that there was no prior effective treatment. However, these targeted therapies only work when companion diagnostics are also available to determine whether targeted therapy is the appropriate treatment option for an individual with cancer.

Early detection and diagnosis of cancer drive success in cancer treatment only under the condition that they are timely and followed by appropriate treatment. The lack or delay of diagnosis will cause an adverse impact on the delivery of quality cancer care and treatment. Screening and early detection techniques are significant to prevent and diagnose cancers at a stage with a treatable potential and a reduction in the cost of treatment. In vitro diagnostics play a key and growing role in early cancer detection and diagnosis, so it's necessary to put more effort into developing novel cancer diagnostic assays for preclinical and clinical adoption to lower cancer mortality, especially in countries with resource-constrained IVD settings.

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