New test for bladder cancer diagnosis

Washington, June 27 (ANI): Scientists have developed a novel assay to test for multiple tumor markers in bladder cancer.

Methylation specific-multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplication (MS-MLPA) can be used to screen multiple target sequences simultaneously in a single reaction, allowing for rapid early screening of tumor markers.

However, commercially available MS-MLPA kits are not available for many diseases, and custom probe design has been limited by problems of chemically synthesizing longer nucleotides.

Researchers from the Danish Cancer Society and the Herlev University Hospital of Copenhagen have now modified this assay by using multiple short synthetic probes to test for tumor markers in bladder cancer.

Study's lead author Dr. Per Guldberg of the Danish Cancer Society and colleagues found that paired tumor and urine samples in most cases showed identical marker patterns, suggesting that this assay may be used for non-invasive diagnosis and disease monitoring. (ANI)