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About 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer are detected annually, making it a very common type of cancer. The startling fact is that there are 20 times more people with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), another name for precursor lesions in the cervix.
Early detection of cervical cancer can have a significant impact on a patient's prognosis regarding treatment outcomes, as it can with many other potentially fatal illnesses. Consequently, it is critical to design screening techniques for cervical cancer and CIN that are simple, convenient, and effective. At present, the most popular methods of screening for these disorders are the cytology examination and the human papillomavirus (HPV) test. Although cytology is widely used as a screening technique in many nations, its sensitivity for identifying CIN is very poor. However, although HPV infections may not necessarily result in cervical lesions, HPV tests have poor specificity despite their high sensitivity. It is even more important to develop better diagnostic techniques in light of these shortcomings. Against this backdrop, a research team led by Professor Takuma Fujii from Fujita Health University, Japan, aimed to identify biomarkers that could assist in the early detection of cervical cancer. In their latest paper published in Cancer Science, they report on a series of compounds that show abnormal expression in serum and cervical mucus samples of cervical cancer patients. These findings could potentially revolutionize disease prevention strategies. Interestingly, the use of cervical mucus samples as part of a potential diagnostic tool was not initially planned. "We wanted to investigate how changes in local immunity are related to cervical cancer, and so, we aimed to study all the currently known microRNAs (miRNAs) associated with the development and progression of cervical tumors," explains Fujii. Adding further, Fujii says, "Initially, we focused on developing a serum-based diagnostic method for clinical use. However, we realized it would be better to first verify if molecular expression levels in the local tissue correlated with serum, assessing the feasibility of a serum diagnostic method." To achieve these goals, the research team compared the miRNA and cytokine profiles from serum and mucus samples. These were collected from patients with cervical cancer or CIN who underwent routine gynecological examinations at Fujita Health University Hospital, over approximately eight years. Through initial screening, the researchers identified three candidate miRNAs and five candidate cytokines in serum, and five candidate miRNAs and seven candidate cytokines in mucus. With the help of miRNA real-time PCR tests and cytokine immunoassay experiments on a larger sample size, the team verified the abnormal expression of these biomarkers on patients with cervical cancer at different stages of the disease. They subsequently evaluated the diagnostic potential of these compounds. Surprisingly, while miRNAs and cytokines in serum showed limited diagnostic accuracy, a specific combination of miRNAs and cytokines in mucus samples proved much more promising. This suggests that focusing on changes in local expression levels, rather than serum levels, may offer a superior diagnostic strategy. "Our study, for the first time, demonstrates that analyzing mucus samples can distinguish cervical tumors from normal tissues more accurately than serum samples. Using such a method as an additional option to traditional screening techniques could help discover cancer and precancerous conditions at an earlier stage," remarked Fujii. (ANI)
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