According to data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the number of new cases of prostate cancer in the U.S. is around 129.4 per 100,000 men per year. Further, 20.7 per 100,000 men die
from prostate cancer every year.
NCI further notes that around 14% of men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point during their lifetime. In the U.S., in 2013, an estimated 2,850,139 men were living with prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. However, if detected early, prostate cancer is curable. Indeed, this is the reason why there is so much emphasis on early detection tests. Early diagnosis could also help in saving billions of dollars in health-care costs.
This morning, VolitionRx Ltd. (NYSE MKT:VNRX) announced study results showing its NuQ(R) Blood Test detects prostate cancer early with significantly higher accuracy than the Prostate Specific Antigen or PSA test.
VolitionRx is a clinical-stage life sciences company focusing on the development of blood-based diagnostic tests for detecting and diagnosing cancer and other diseases.
The company has already developed approximately 30 blood-based assays to detect specific biomarkers that can be used individually or in combination to generate a profile, which forms the basis of a test for a particular cancer or disease. The Company's Nucleosomics biomarker platform is a technology that is used for a range of cancers.
VNRX today said that a single NuQ(R) biomarker assay detected 71% early stage 1 prostate cancer cases at 93% specificity. The company noted that this is significantly higher than the most common blood test currently used to detect prostate cancer, the PSA test. The PSA test is reported to detect 53% of prostate cancers at 73% specificity. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Surrey Cancer Research Institute at the University of Surrey in the U.K.
The results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Dr. Jake Micallef, Chief Scientific Officer at VolitionRx, said that this single NuQ® biomarker assay has shown great potential for high accuracy in detecting early stage I prostate cancer, and the ability to detect early stage prostate cancer at significantly greater sensitivity than the PSA test with a simple ELISA blood test is a remarkable breakthrough.
Dr. Micallef added that the accuracy of the single NuQ(R) test may be further improved by use of a combination of
NuQ® tests in a panel with PSA.
Share of VNRX are up over 2% on the news today, and are trading roughly at their 52-week midpoint. This development may be the catalyst needed to push the stock up into a new upward trend.
