By Thomas Oriti
Developers of a simple low-cost test for detecting early signs of oral cancer are pushing for a national screening program.
If oral cancer is detected too late, the survival rate is only 30 per cent, killing about 100,000 people globally every year.
Currently, there are no routine screening tests for the cancer, but a simple blood test developed by Sydney researchers is proving effective in detecting the disease early.
The invention has attracted interest from around the world, and the minds behind it are pushing for a national screening program throughout Australia.
Two researchers from Sydney’s University of Technology (UTS) developed the blood test that looks at the profile of small molecules called microRNA in the blood and can be carried out during routine GP checks.
So far the UTS team have successfully tested 400 Sydney residents.
PhD student Samantha Khoury said the test can detect the cancer before symptoms, such as ulcers, even develop.
“Early detection provides a window of opportunity for clinicians to actually diagnose patients early and save their lives, because oral cancer patients have a very low survival rate beyond five years when they’re first diagnosed,” Ms Khoury said.
“Sixty per cent of them, I believe, come in with a late stage cancer, so if we can transform that stage of diagnosis, they suddenly have a 90 per cent chance of living beyond five years.
“I think that’s remarkable.”
Dr Nham Tran from the University’s Centre for Health Technologies said the world-first invention, had attracted interest from cancer specialists around the world.
Closer to home, Dr Tran said “the dream for us is that we want a national screening program.”
“So you can envisage when you’re a certain age, then you can go into your GP, the GP just nominates you for testing, and as a result you would then be able to get that particular diagnosis.”
Cancer survivor advocates early detection
Oral cancer survivor Sue Suchy was first diagnosed twenty years ago at the age of 40.
Fortunately, her cancer was detected early.
“I had an ulcer that didn’t heal, and luckily my dentist was quite tuned in, and he was concerned after about six weeks, so he sent me to a dental surgeon,” Ms Suchy told AM.
“He ended up doing a biopsy on both sides of the back of my tongue, which was excruciating, and it ended up being a cancer.”
Since then Ms Suchy has been diagnosed with the cancer three times, but still considers herself lucky.
“Most people get (oral cancer) picked up at a later stage, when things are out of control and they require major intervention and devastating surgeries – That means they may not be able to eat or talk,” she said.
“I’m afraid that a lot of GPs and dentists aren’t really all that geared up to detect it, so they tend to send people off for biopsies and that’s a very invasive and traumatic experience.”
Ms Suchy hopes the UTS test can be expanded to hospitals overseas.
“For the cost to the system to have to put people through radiation, chemo, and surgery, it could be prevented.
“And there could be a lot of savings to the health system, as well as the patients.”