Kidney Cancer Detected Early With Urine Test
If kidney cancer is diagnosed early -- before it spreads -- 80 percent of patients survive. However, finding it early has been among the disease's greatest challenges. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a noninvasive method to screen for kidney cancer that involves measuring the presence of proteins in the urine. The findings are reported March 19 in the journal JAMA Oncology. The researchers found that the protein biomarkers were more than 95 percent accurate in identifying early-stage kidney cancers. In addition, there were no false positives caused by non-cancerous kidney disease. "These biomarkers are very sensitive and specific to kidney cancer," said senior author Evan D. Kharasch, MD, PhD. read more