[Vernes/Augusti cancer assessment. Documentation 17]

The principles are: Determination of mucopolysaccharides, expressed as weight of mannose-galactose per liter of serum. Because of the non-specificity of this test in cancers, it is combined with other "more specific tests of the inflammatory condition" (orosomucoids and seromucoids). The floculation reaction of proteins through acidified copper acetate provokes the formation in the serum of a precipitate containing mainly beta and gamma globulins, frequently found in the blood of cancer patients, not specific to that condition but nevertheless "providing information on the development of cancers". Originally this test was used as a method of cancer diagnosis but, according to Augusti, it is now to be considered as nothing more than "a means of following up a cancerous state under the effect of treatment". The set of tests amounts to sFr. 150.-, to be repeated every six weeks. The cancerometry has been developed in the thirties by Dr. Alfred Vernes and was used as method of very approximate testing of the hepatic functions. The main promoter is at present Dr. Augusti in Paris. Augusti, in a study on the results obtained in his laboratory during one year (20,000 various examinations), claims to have found differing histograms in healthy and cancerous subjects: "The two reactions assume a correct method of observing the cancerous state." Up to now no clinical trials have been published.