The investigators are now conducting a larger trial, looking at 500 patients at the Hamilton site. They say it could take several years before the product is available in doctors' offices. IMI hopes it will become part of a standard screening regimen, like cholesterol tests and PSA tests to detect prostate cancer. IMI is also developing tests using the same technique to detect early-stage cervical cancer and prostate cancer. In 2000, IMI completed a clinical trial in Toronto for colorectal cancer that showed its test outperformed the standard screening tests.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in North America.
It affects more than 150,000 new people every year. Doctors around the world are calling for screening programs for colorectal cancer so it can be detected early, when it is curable more than 90 per cent of the time. When detected in later stages, like lung cancer, it is almost always fatal. Indeed, the agency that advises the Ontario government, Cancer Care Ontario, has for several years called for aggressive screening, a recommendation that has yet to be carried out. Last year, IMI entered a collaborative research agreement with McMaster University's Faculty of Health Sciences by agreeing to sponsor research projects aimed at using genomics to detect cancer at the earliest stages and monitor patients' response to gene therapy.