CDx Diagnostics is releasing in the U.S. their brush biopsy system for detection of precancerous esophageal adenocarcinoma. The device features a considerably larger brush that covers an area larger than forceps are typically able to grab.
The company believes that a lot more patients will be identified having precancerous cells, leading to earlier treatment and prevention of full blown cancer.
While over 8 million Americans with heartburn see a gastroenterologist each year for this routine test, many of them with precancerous cells are currently being missed during their endoscopy. This is because the tissue sampling method used during an upper endoscopy relies on using a tiny forceps to test a large area of the esophagus and thus often fails to detect abnormal tissue that may be present.
The newly released EndoCDx test solves this problem by utilizing a specially designed biopsy brush to test a much larger area of the esophagus than can be sampled by a forceps. This large partially disaggregated tissue sample is then subjected to a powerful three-dimensional computer assisted laboratory search for any precancerous cells. While CDx testing adds less than a minute to the standard upper endoscopy procedure it has been shown in large recently published clinical trials to increase the detection of both Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal dysplasia, the precancerous precursors of esophageal cancer, by over 40%, making it potentially one of the most recent significant advances in the prevention of any GI cancer.
“Precancer of the esophagus is often invisible during endoscopy and gastroenterologists have long known that about 30% of patients with an abnormality are not being detected because the small biopsy forceps used to sample the esophagus did not happen to land on the abnormal area,” said Seth Gross, MD, Director of Advanced Endoscopy at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. He continued, “The over 40% increased pickup of disease provided by EndoCDx is a major advance in our goal of making esophageal cancer as preventable as colon cancer.”
Product page: EndoCDx
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