In the flurry of presentations on early detection of cancer at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Grail LLC stood out for the number of sessions and the strength of its results. In a real-world study presented, Grail’s Galleri multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test cancer signal origin (CSO) demonstrated accuracy of 91%.

Creo Medical Group plc says it is poised to address the mismatch between the advances in screening technology, which are making it possible to detect early-stage lung cancer, and the current invasive and inappropriate methods of treating it, following the first-in-human use of its Microblate Flex microwave ablation device.

The 2023 American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting featured several notable developments on the diagnostics side, including significant advances in multi-cancer early detection (MCED). Grail Inc. presented its results from SYMPLIFY, the first major study of its MCED test in symptomatic patients. The test showed a negative predictive value of more than 97% and a positive predictive value that exceeded 75% in individuals who presented to primary care with non-specific symptoms that prompted a referral for cancer evaluation.

A study of more than a thousand tumor samples, led by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, gives valuable insight into the different gene expression patterns seen in different cancers. The new findings could help address challenges associated with targeting many types of tumors, which are hard to treat in large part due to the variable nature of their cells and gene expression patterns, by helping to create better targeted therapeutics.

A cancer therapy test unveiled by Exact Sciences Corp. will be able to provide a complete molecular picture of a patient’s tumor allowing for them to receive the most effective treatment as quickly as possible. Exact’s Oncoextra therapy selection test, recently launched in the U.S., enhances the ability of doctors to characterize and understand solid tumors.

Investigators at West China Hospital, Sichuan University and affiliated organizations have discovered a novel c-Myc inhibitor being developed as a potential anticancer agent.

X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) is not unique to female cells and may confer some survival advantage to male cancer cells, according to scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard. The noncoding RNA XIST (acronym for X-inactive specific transcript), which in female mammals (of genotype XX) inactivates one of the X chromosomes, preventing the overexpression of the genes of the repeated chromosome from early stages of embryonic development, also acts somatically in some male cancers, compensating for the loss of the entire chromosome.

“We found that a small percentage of male cancers are expressing XIST, which normally is expressed in female cancers. And the percentage of male cancers that express XIST is variable depending on the cancer type,” Srinivas Viswanathan, researcher in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard and assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, told BioWorld.

Cascination AG reported the first thermal ablation of liver tumors to be performed in France using its CT-guided stereotactic planning and navigation system, CAS-One IR. The technology was used at Dijon Bourgogne University Hospital, where a dozen procedures have been carried out in the Department of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Radiology.