Good post from "bogatie" on Yahoo board:
For those of you who just jumped in on the news and volume, here is
another product that Matritech has been developing - a test for cervical
cancer that is particularly useful for abnormal pap smears (ASCUS).
The Matritech homepage has several reports on this. What is key is that
the company should submit the PMA to FDA on this test in 1999. Here
is an article which is not from their home page:
NEW ORLEANS--Preliminary findings may lead to a new test for
cervical cancer that is more accurate than the Pap smear, an industry
researcher said here last month at the annual meeting of the American
Association for Cancer Research.
The test detects a cancer-related protein in cervical cells. Previous
research found that cervical cancers express this protein, which is called
nuclear matrix protein 179, or NMP179, according to investigator
Susan K. Keesee, Ph.D., manager of cell biology at Matritech Inc.,
based in Newton, Mass. NMP179 is not found in normal cervical cells,
she said.
In the new study, the researchers first tested for NMP179 in tumors
from 20 patients with cervical cancer and in cervical-cell samples from
10 control patients. They found the protein in all of the tumors but in
none of the normal tissue samples.
Next, the investigators searched 322 random samples of cervical cells
for NMP179. To perform the test, each laboratory slide was treated
with a stain that made NMP179 visible.
They concluded that their test was 97% accurate at detecting
high-grade, precancerous abnormalities and 82% effective at picking up
low-grade precancerous changes.
"We believe that NMP179 could be a valuable marker for screening
for early detection of cervical dysplasia and help treat it at an early
age," Dr. Keesee said.
Frank J. Rauscher III, Ph.D., a professor of molecular genetics at the
Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, commented that the new test is clearly
more definitive than the Pap smear because the staining technique used
vividly shows NMP179, and, thus, clear evidence of an abnormality. |
