NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – DiagnoCure Oncology Laboratories said today that its colorectal cancer staging test has been certified for marketing in the US by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments.
DiagnoCure Oncology Laboratories, a West Chester, PA-based subsidiary of the Canadian company DiagnoCure, said now that the Previstage GCC Colorectal Cancer Staging Test has been CLIA certified the company can promote it, perform it in its US lab, and promote the results worldwide.
DiagnoCure President and CEO John Schafer in a statement called the certification “a major accomplishment” in the company’s growth strategy that will “strengthen our leadership position in high-value molecular cancer diagnostics.”
The company said that each year in the US 174,000 people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and 142,000 cancer removal surgeries are performed.
Staging colorectal cancer patients is crucial, the company said, because it determines the course of treatment after surgery. Now, that method requires that pathologists examine a thin slice of lymph node tissue to see if the cancer has spread. As many as 25 percent to 30 percent of patients without stage one and stage two cancers in the lymph nodes later have recurrences of the disease.
“We can help answer the fundamental question that every colorectal cancer patient asks after their surgery: Am I cured or has my cancer spread?" Schafer added.