[A novel approach to techniques in genetic testing for cancer]

In molecular targeted drug therapy, genetic screening is carried out to identify the existence of target genes that are specifically expressed in cancer cells. Conventional methods for detecting the mutation of genes in cancer cells through the use of purified DNA is time consuming, especially in the case of the enzymatic treatment of pathological specimens, and it is difficult to finish all these protocols on the same day. Also, depending on the condition of the patients, it may be difficult to perform surgery or biopsy, and pathological specimens are not always obtainable. Thus, sometimes genetic screening using purified DNA and the enzymatic treatment of pathological specimens cannot be performed. We have successfully solved these problems using i-densy, a genetic analysis device, and two different methods of genetic testing for cancer. The first is a method which, without extracting DNA, uses simply pretreated pathological specimens for genetic screening. Using deparaffinized specimens that have only been heat-treated for a short period of time, we were able to obtain the exact same results as if we had extracted DNA. The second is the highly specific genetic screening technique, the MBP-QP method. Using this method, we were able to confirm the detection of genetic mutation from the DNA of blood plasma. It is now possible to screen for the mutation of genes in cancer cells using just a blood sample from patients without using tissue or cells, which also has little burden on the patient.