Development of Early Diagnostic Kit for Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma is an aggressive tumour predominately caused by asbestos exposure. Prognosis of Malign Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) patients is generally very bad, due to the fact that the disease is diagnosed only at later stages.
What We Do
There are treatment options for patients who are diagnosed at early stages that lead to increased survival times and improved quality of life. As there are no established means for the early diagnosis of the disease there are also no screening programs currently in effect. However, MPM is known to have a latent period of about 20 to 40 years, and a gradual increase in biomarker levels during this period has been reported, suggesting early diagnosis of the disease is likely using the correct combination of biomarkers.The aim of this project is to develop a diagnostic kit for early diagosis of mesothelioma by utilizing serum based biomarkers. The novel part of our project is the discovery of unique/novel biomarkers and detection of non-symptomatic cases among a risk cohort at a scale that has not been pursued before.
