New bowel cancer evidence supports calls for routine DNA damage repair test
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 - 08:20
in Health & Medicine
Bowel cancer patients whose tumours contain defects in specific DNA repair systems are much less likely to experience tumour recurrence post surgery, published results from a major clinical study have demonstrated. Scientists who collaborated on the 10 year QUASAR randomised control trial, one of the largest UK clinical trials to test the benefits of chemotherapy in post-surgery bowel cancer patients, have confirmed that colon tumors containing defects in their DNA mismatch repair system are 50 percent less likely to recur following surgery compared to tumours where DNA mismatch repair is normal.