While death rates from heart disease, stroke and a number of other diseases have been decreasing over the past generation, deaths due to many forms of cancer are increasing. Despite rapid advances in our understanding of many forms of cancer, poor survival rates are generally due to inadequate diagnosis and treatment. Most tumours are only detectable when they reach a size of about 1 cm. Continued development of the tumour to a size incompatible with life occurs in a relatively short space of time, allowing little time for therapeutic intervention. Clearly, the key to successful treatment of cancer lies in early diagnosis.
Early diagnosis remains illusive for most forms of cancer, for a variety of reasons.
For some forms of cancer, specific markers for the disease are not available, making diagnosis at all but the latest stages of the disease difficult. In other forms of the disease markers are available but they are not always specific indicator of the disease, and may be associated with other, related but non-malignant conditions. In other cases, techniques may exist but the cost of applying these tools for general screening of the population is prohibitive. At the institute for Biodiagnostics we have a number of research programmes aimed at developing novel techniques for cancer diagnosis that are sensitive, specific and affordable. Specific areas of research include diagnosis of colon cancer , prostate cancer and skin cancer .