Early cancer detection has the potential to significantly improve treatment outcomes and survival rates. Our study investigates the roles of 5‑methylcytosine (5mC) and 5‑hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) as biomarkers for early-stage colorectal cancer (CRC) detection in cell-free DNA (cfDNA).
What can you expect to learn from the paper? Here are featured highlights from the paper in the figures above:
- Figure 1C: 5hmC offers additional discriminatory power in the early stages of CRC progression
- Figure 2A: methylation changes demonstrated by combining 5mC and 5hmC allow for the tracking of changes within tumour progression
- Figure 2B: early-stage detection, CRC 5hmC is shown to provide complementary information to that of 5mC
- Figure 2D: later-stage cancer, the discernible increase in 5hmC allows for increased accuracy of disease progression
Together, the 5mC and 5hmC model shows an 85% sensitivity (at 95% specificity) for early-stage cancer detection. This groundbreaking data is a paradigm shift for liquid biopsy and cancer research.
