A new report states that medical advancements have created a urine test that could be used to detect colon cancer, according to findings published in the American Chemical Societys Journal of Proteome Research.
A team of scientists took urine samples from 123 patients, 60 who had been diagnosed with colon cancers and 63 healthy individuals. Testing the composition of the samples, the study showed that there were 16 irregular chemicals in the samples from the colon cancer patients.
The scientists concluded that using urine samples may be a way to diagnose patients with colon cancer. Patients could benefit from the lower cost, ease and comfort that the urine test would provide. The development of these tests could reduce the need to do colonoscopy procedures, which although expensive and uncomfortable, are currently the most common tests done to detect this type of cancer.
In 2006, a total of 139,127 people in the United States were diagnosed with colon cancer, and more than 50,000 had died from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).