tamination found in the country contributes to an abnormal prevalence of cancer. To illustrate the point, one ought to consider the fact that of all annual cancer deaths that occur worldwide, some twenty-seven percent of them are Chinese, or that one out of every sixty men in south China have a chance to contract nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which is a viral cancer that starts in the upper part of the throat.
This specific procedure is called skin punch biopsy. The subpar conditions of cancer treatment paired with its abnormal prevalence in China pushed Doctor Dennis Lo to tackle the challenge of finding a superior cancer detection and treatment-identification method: liquid biopsy. Liquid biopsies only require a few drops of blood in order to work. The procedure only requires blood droplets because it takes advantage of the fact that cancerous tumors shed their DNA into the bloodstream. The shed DNA, known as circulating tumor DNA, is located within the patient’ s blood and then genetically sequenced, which allows doctors to obtain the same information that a tissue biopsy would normally give at a fraction of the cost and pain. What makes liquid biopsy particularly remarkable and indeed revolutionary is that they allow clinicians to take serial samples without hassle, thus allowing cancer tumors and all their metastases( which are the development of secondary growths at a distance from a primary site of cancer) to be observed in real time, which leads to more
effective treatment. Dr. Lo has been conducting a study in China to prove the reliability of the procedure. His study involves 20,000 healthy middle-aged men. Out of the first one thousand screened, Dr. Lo’ s team detected that 17 had forms of cancer, and 13 were at stage I, the earliest form possible. Nearly all the men have beaten the cancer with radiation treatment thanks to early detection of the cancers. Compared with the survival rates of those that only seek medical attention once symptoms become noticeable, such as having masses on the neck, which are only seventy percent, the results show great improvement. The cancer involved in the study was nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Evidently, liquid biopsy can be successfully used to detect viral cancers earlier than ever before. The final challenge that remains with this life-saving technology is developing affordable and effective DNA sequencers that will be able to detect all cancers, not just the viral variety. This will allow the technology to be far more widely-used and, of course, save a countless number of lives. Dr. Lo is not alone in the development of this revolutionary technology. Teams all over the globe, including a team from John Hopkins University, are locked in a race to turn the idea into a mainstream technology. Dr. Lo himself believes he and his team are on the brink of success, so now it is only a matter of time before cancer detection and treatment undergo beneficial revolution.
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