Canadian-developed screening test aims to detect early-stage cancer using blood samples
CTV
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in late-stage cancer diagnoses, with restrictions preventing or discouraging many from getting screened early. But an Ontario company has developed a new cancer screening test that uses blood samples, which could make it easier to detect cancers earlier.
StageZero Life Sciences is a Richmond Hill, Ont.-based health care company that has developed a way to simultaneously screen for a wide variety of cancers using a single blood sample. Some of the cancers that StageZero can detect include breast, cervical, endometrial, prostate, liver, stomach, bladder and colorectal.
"We're adding a whole series of additional ones. And as we continue to build out, we'll continue to add to them," StageZero Chairman and CEO James Howard-Tripp told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
The test uses mRNA technology to analyze gene signatures in the patient's blood sample and cross-reference them with genetic profiles of individuals who have had cancer.
"We'll take a sample of your blood and we then measure it to see whether it matches. Clearly, if it does that, we're going to say with very high probability that you have (cancer)," said Howard-Tripp.
