Technologies

The invention offers an autoantibody set that can be used as a diagnostic tool for diagnosis and stratification of colorectal cancer patients.

Sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy, the current gold standards for detection of CRC in the distal and total colorectum, respectively, are limited by several disadvantages, such as high costs, limited resources and poor compliance. So other cost-effective and sensitive methods for the early detection of colorectal cancer are urgently needed and very important from the health economic standpoint. Using blood samples the invention offers an autoantibody set that can be used as a diagnostic tool for diagnosis and stratification of colorectal cancer.

Using biological (blood) samples from a screening colonoscopy study including approx. 6800 participants a core panel of 4 proteins was identified without substantial loss of predictive power. Sensitivity of this core marker set was 26% (95% CI, 13−45%) for early stage CRC at a specificity of 90% (95% CI, 83−94%).