"Female version of Jobs" once created a blood test scam, such as Theranos blood test company founded by Elizabeth Anne Holmes, which was famous for its innovative technology of detecting more than 200 diseases with only a small amount of blood, and once became a hot company in the field of biotechnology. However, it was quickly questioned by the press and regulators about the technical authenticity claimed by the company, and was prosecuted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for "massive fraud", while the federal grand jury prosecuted Holmes for nine counts of wire transfer fraud and two counts of conspiracy to wire transfer fraud, exposing this lie that deceived the world.
Toray Group claims to develop a kit technology for detecting bleeding cancer, but the topic of hematologic cancer detection has not disappeared. According to a recent report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a company named Toray Co, Ltd. will submit an application to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in the near future, seeking approval to produce and sell kits for early detection and diagnosis of various cancers through a drop of blood.
According to related reports, Toray Industrial Company has developed a method to detect various cancers with only one drop of blood by using the principle of gene detection and microRNA extracted from serum. Patients can detect multiple cancers at one time, and the cost is tens of thousands of yen (the exchange rate of yen to NT is about 1:0.29). The company claims that the detection accuracy is over 95%, and the research project has successfully targeted 5 kinds of breast cancer and 3 kinds of colorectal cancer. If it successfully passes the government approval, it can be listed in 2020 at the earliest.
The detection technology of blood drop cancer has been questioned by the medical community and has its limitations. However, this new technology of blood drop cancer detection cannot escape the doubts of some scientists and medical professionals. First of all, Toray claims that it can have a sensitivity 100 times higher than other test chips, which is incredible. Some people in the medical field pointed out that a drop of blood contains a very small amount of microDNA. Generally speaking, in clinical genetic testing, to extract 10 ml of blood, only one drop of blood is used for testing, which means that the error rate will be higher and the accuracy will be lower.
However, the principle of hematologic cancer detection technology advocated by Toray is not groundless, because when cells become cancerous but have not yet formed lesions, tumor markers will appear in human blood, such as microRNA, circulating tumor DNA(ctDNA), protein, exosomes and circulating tumor cells (CTCs). By analyzing these components, doctors can screen patients at an early stage and diagnose the development and changes of cancer.
At present, the development of hematologic cancer detection technology has been proved to be suitable for the diagnosis and adjuvant treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer and other cancers, but it is not omnipotent, because not all tumor cells will release mutated DNA into the blood. The detection sensitivity of various cancers is also different, for example, the detection rate of glioblastoma is only 57%.
In addition, the blood test of cancer still faces many challenges, such as too small DNA fragments, short half-life, the risk of contamination from normal DNA and the sharp decline in the proportion of tumor DNA with the emergence of therapeutic effects. So far, blood test can not completely replace tissue test, or even be used as diagnostic test.
At present, the blood detection technology of cancer has made great progress. However, scientists all over the world are still committed to developing new early cancer detection technologies and have made some progress. For example, in 20 17, a research team composed of Nagoya University, Kyushu University and National Cancer Research Center in Japan announced a new technology for detecting cancers such as lung cancer and prostate cancer through 1 ml urine. In 20 18, the research team of Johns Hopkins University in the United States also released a clinical diagnosis scheme for 8 kinds of cancer, and detected cancer through the mutation of 16 gene and the corresponding expression of 8 protein markers.
However, at present, these research results are only in the initial stage of animal experiments or human experiments, and have not entered commercial mass production applications. As for the technology of detecting cancer with a drop of blood proposed by Toray Group in Japan, it has not been published in any internationally renowned academic journals so far, and its credibility can only be called a big question mark.