MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION - Medical Device Daily

MEDICAL DEVICE INNOVATION 2010
Broad-scope test aims to
catch cancer before it starts
By AMANDA PEDERSEN
Medical Device Daily Staff Writer
There are a number of good cancer tests designed to
catch the disease as soon as it shows up, but one company
believes it has found a way to detect signs of whole-body
cancers long before the disease is even present.
GlycoMeds (Phoenix) says its Cancer Test is a broad-scope
test that detects conditions within the body that allow cancer
cell growth prior to cancer cells being active.
GlycoMeds’ Cancer Test employs a process that produces
consistent measurements of the chemical composition
of a person’s saliva, the company says. It is an at-home
test designed to alert the user to the presence of conditions
within their body that are conducive to the growth of 74%
of all cancers, including breast, lung, kidney, colon, liver,
bone and brain cancer. The kit does not measure pH, the
company noted.
Unlike certain other at-home diagnostics, the results of
this test are not black-and-white, Roger Brown, PhD, CEO of
GlycoMeds, told Medical Device Daily.
“With our test it’s a gray-scale test, we don’t tell you
that you have cancer or that you don’t have cancer, we just
give you the likelihood,” he said.
The test is not keyed for any specific type of cancer
either, Brown said, but is more sensitive to cancers that
affect the whole body, such as lung cancer. Not all cancers
affect the whole body, he noted.
With lung cancer, for example, the patient’s entire body
is affected as their pH levels drop and their system slowly
goes down. It can take years before the system will degrade
to the point where the cancer will be detectable clinically,
Brown said. While acknowledging that there are other tests
that can catch cancer as soon as it shows up, he said doctors
don’t currently have a decent way to detect ahead of
time the patient’s likelihood of getting cancer.
According to the company, the GlycoMeds Cancer Test
works because most cancer cells live in a narrow pH range
within the body. As long as the body’s system pH is outside
that range, most cancer cells cannot survive.
The GlycoMeds test measures the changes in a person’s
fluidic system once a day for three days, averages
those changes, and compares them to the changes a
healthy person’s fluidic system would undergo. The measurement
is then equated to a condition level on a scale of 0
to 7, where 0 is healthy – no conditions conducive to the
growth of whole-body cancer cells – and 7 has a prognosis
of death.
If the number reveals an active possibility of cancer
(levels 4, 5 or 6), the person taking the test is advised to
make an appointment with his or her doctor for further
evaluation. But if the test shows cancer is not imminent
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(levels 1, 2 or 3), the person taking the test can take corrective
action to bring his or her system back to normal, thus
inhibiting cancer cell growth.
“If you’re a level 4 or a level 5 it doesn’t say ‘I have cancer’
but it says ‘I better go to the doctor’,” Brown said.
“Essentially the kit is just saying ‘maybe you ought to have
an extra checkup this year.”
Brown said the test instructs the consumer to take the
saliva test three mornings in a row and average the results
together because a lot of people have never taken a saliva
test and the first time they take it they may drop it on the
floor or accidentally do something else that could affect its
accuracy. Hopefully, he said, by taking the average of three
days’ worth of results, the test will produce a reasonably
accurate result.
“I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, but also as
accurate as possible,” Brown said.
If the test is being administered by a healthcare professional,
Brown said supplemental instructions included in
the kit say it is fine to use the results of just one sample
because “they usually know what they’re doing.”
The company said it is looking for a partner to license
and market the Cancer Test Kit, which has not yet been presented
to the FDA for comment.
Brown said the Cancer Test has been in development
since 2004. He said there has been very little research done
on the causes of cancer vs. system condition. In 2004, however,
there was a study done in which researchers linked a
low pH system to cell conduciveness to viral cancers. The
lower the system pH, the more susceptible the cells are to
being turned into cancer cells, Brown noted.
“I think it’s important from the point of view that a lot
of people would like to know whether they’re at risk more
than normal for cancer or not,” Brown said. He compared
the Cancer Test to a popular at-home HIV test. “From the
research we’ve done, there are more people that are concerned
about whether or not they have cancer than there
are people who want to know if they have AIDS or HIV.”
In addition to the at-home HIV test that Brown mentioned,
the Cancer Test joins a whole host of diagnostics
that are being sold directly to consumers now, which are
designed to tell people what their risk level is of developing
a particular disease.
(This story originally appeared in the Feb. 6, 2009, edition
of Medical Device Daily)
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