Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0012872 (DNA marker)
 929 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The treatment of early-stage tumours decreases the overall mortality of colorectal tumour patients. In this retrospective study we determined the sensitivity and the specificity of the faecal occult blood test (FOBT) and the molecular diagnosis (MD). We analysed 57 stool samples from patients with colorectal carcinomas for the presence of occult blood using a standard FOBT and for alterations in the three different tumour relevant markers APC, BAT26 and L-DNA. Stool samples from 44 control donors were analysed to determine the specificity of the applied methods. Twenty-nine (51%; 95% confidence interval (CI): 38-63%) stool samples of the cancer patients gave positive FOBT results. Thirty-seven (65%; CI: 52-76%) samples showed alterations in at least one DNA marker. Sixteen (28%) samples were positive only in the FOBT, and 24 (42%) samples showed a positive result exclusively in MD. The combined application of both methods resulted in a sensitivity of 93% (CI: 83-97%) and an overall specificity of 89% (CI: 76-95%). The combined application of FOBT and MD resulted in an overall sensitivity, which could not be achieved by any of the methods alone and which is in the range of invasive diagnostic methods.
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PMID:Non-invasive detection of colorectal tumours by the combined application of molecular diagnosis and the faecal occult blood test. 1615 16

The critical point for successful treatment of cancer is diagnosis at early stages of tumor development. Cancer cell-specific methylated DNA has been found in the blood of cancer patients, indicating that cell-free DNA (cfDNA) circulating in the blood is a convenient tumor-associated DNA marker. Therefore methylated cfDNA can be used as a minimally invasive diagnostic marker. We analysed the concentration of plasma cfDNA and methylation of six tumor suppressor genes in samples of 27 patients with renal cancer and 15 healthy donors as controls. The cfDNA concentrations in samples from cancer patients and healthy donors was measured using two different methods, the SYBR Green I fluorescence test and quantitative real-time PCR. Both methods revealed a statistically significant increase of cfDNA concentrations in cancer patients. Hypermethylation on cfDNA was detected for the LRRC3B (74.1%), APC (51.9%), FHIT (55.6%), and RASSF1 (62.9%) genes in patients with renal cancer. Promoter methylation of VHL and ITGA9 genes was not found on cfDNA. Our results confirmed that the cfDNA level and methylation of CpG islands of RASSF1A, FHIT, and APC genes in blood plasma can be used as noninvasive diagnostic markers of cancer.
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PMID:Concentration and Methylation of Cell-Free DNA from Blood Plasma as Diagnostic Markers of Renal Cancer. 2772 87