Yeah as I said just a screen to see if other more invasive tests could be useful. The benefit is that you just plate some of these worms with a urine sample and see if they migrate. The worms are apparently sensitive enough that scientists can modify them to detect specific forms of tumors so the chemoattractant must be relatively unique. I mean the real test would be in larger scale clinical trials where the nematodes are probably faced with a larger variety of compounds from various disease states, if the sensitivity drops maybe there is some confounding sense there

This is interesting I'm not denying that, worms have been used throughout the history of medicine, but wouldn't it be better to isolate whatever tumor marker/indicator they sense then utilize that in urine testing?

yeah for sure and I'm assuming someone will head in that direction but I'm wondering how easy that might be. would that not just come down to trial and error for however many compounds you might possibly find in a urine sample?

Most you can get from urine are metabolite tests, urine culture tests, and renal function tests.

Sometimes a 24-hour urine catecholamine (NA/epi) test has to be done in suspected pheochromocytoma/adrenal tumors...that's about the only urine marker for tumors, and it's no direct tumor marker at that. So being able to isolate specific values of a specific tumor marker will take ages to discover. It's just qualitative analysis with those nematodes.

Until then we have to stick to the physical examination and radiological studies.

vivilol are u in med school?

and cloudkicker are u going to a degree in kinesiology?

if i remember correctly?

just curious

We're both done our degrees but yes that's correct

if you're in the field at all then i guess you'd be able to tell how quickly medical advancements can take off

while what we're reading about here might not show up in clinical trials just as they are any time soon, i guess i've got a positive outlook in thinking they could be a major leading factor (or at least a catalyst) in the methods/technology we WILL see however many years down the road.

yaaaaaaaaaaa

vivi

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/mri_based_on_a_sugar_molecule_can_tell_cancerous_from_noncancerous_cells

probably more quantitative results for you

cloudy's gonna be a medical clown one day