Stool Sample Testing Promising New Pawn in GI Cancer Detection

Stool sample testing is being lauded at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Chicago as a promising new pawn in GI cancer detection.

Using a stool specimen, doctors may be able to detect colon and many other cancers of the digestive tract. Those cancers include stomach, pancreatic, bile duct and esophageal cancer.

The test searches for evidence of DNA changes shed from the lining of the colon and rectum. Cells from the surface of cancerous tumors and precancerous polyps show recognizable DNA changes or markers.

The test worked as well on early and late-stage cancers.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic designed the stool sample testing to be a noninvasive way to find colon cancer but they now believe it could be a promising pawn to detect the many other different types of GI cancer.