Colorectal cancer detection by quantifying biomarkers in non-invasively collected colorectal mucus.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a severe disease causing about 10% of all cancer deaths in the UK. Many CRC cases are diagnosed too late to be successfully treated, and early detection of CRC remains an urgent healthcare problem. This project aims to evaluate the feasibility of our recently invented technique of non-invasive sample collection and analysis as a new approach to CRC detection. This technique has already been successfully tested by DiagNodus for detecting inflammatory bowel disease, and its application to the problem of CRC is a logical extension of our research. We plan to non-invasively obtain colorectal mucus samples from 50 CRC patients and 50 patients without tumours (controls) at the Department of Gastroenterology of St George's Hospital (London). A range of cancer-specific biomarkers will be quantified in the collected samples. We expect that the outcome of the project will allow comparatively assessing biomarker performance for CRC detection. The best performing biomarker(s) will be used for the development of a new rapid test for CRC early detection and screening.