IU, Purdue Collaborate on Potential Kidney Cancer Test
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis-based Walther Cancer Foundation Inc. has awarded two grants totaling $240,000 to help researchers who are working to develop a urine test to help detect a type of kidney cancer.
The goal is to create a simple test that would help patients avoid an invasive biopsy as doctors look for renal tumors.
“Instead of doing a biopsy, could we have a patient come into the office with a urine specimen, test the specimen to determine whether it’s a clear cell cancer, a papillary tumor, a low-risk tumor or a high-risk tumor that would spread in five years or 10 years?” wondered Dr. Ronald Boris, a physician with the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Boris is collaborating with a biochemistry professor in the Purdue College of Agriculture. W. Andy Tao, Ph.D. previously discovered a method to detect and monitor breast cancer using a simple blood test and bladder cancer using a urine test.
Tao says by analyzing a certain group of proteins found in urine, it may help to classify renal tumors by their aggressiveness and subtypes.
“They carry important markers of the cell-like proteins, DNA and RNA cargo, and lipids, and have functions that include intercellular communication which contribute to the pathogenesis of several diseases,” said Tao. “I like to call them the ‘Ubers’ of the cell, which transport relevant targets into other cells, and therefore, influence processes in the recipient cell.”
Boris said he plans to apply for additional grants to continue this study with the goal of offering patients more effective diagnostic testing instead of invasive biopsies and CAT scans.
He said the current diagnostic tests are typically done only after a person is experiencing symptoms, a sign that the disease has already progressed.