DiagnoCure announces presentation on Previstage GCC at the 2013
ASCO annual meeting
New findings validate clinical utility in Colorectal Cancer
Staging
MONTREAL, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - DiagnoCure Inc. (TSX:
CUR) (OTCQX:
DGCRF) (the "Corporation"), today announced that results from a
large
validation study of the PrevistageTM GCC Colorectal
Cancer Staging Test have been selected for presentation
at the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology®
(ASCO®) Annual Meeting, taking place in Chicago, Illinois from May 31 to June
4, 2013. The results of the second phase of the VITAR
(Validating
Indicators To Associate Recurrence Risk) study, which included
463
untreated stage II (T3N0) colon cancer patients from North American
and
European clinical sites will be presented during this annual
meeting.
These patients had not been treated with adjuvant chemotherapy
mainly
because their lymph nodes appeared cancer?free by examination under
the
microscope, yet 10% of them had a disease recurrence or died
from
cancer afterwards.
The presentation titled "Guanylyl cyclase C (GCC) expression in
lymph
nodes (LNs) as a determinant of recurrence in stage II colon
cancer
(CC) patients (pts)" (Abstract #3639), will be exhibited on
Sunday,
June 2, 8:00 AM -
11:45 AM, S Hall A2.
"Our new study supports the prognostic value of our
PrevistageTM GCC assay independently of traditional
histopathology risk factors. In
order to establish a risk of recurrence for the stage II patients,
the
study focused on the positive LN ratio (LNR), defined as the number
of
nodes in which cancer cells were identified with the
PrevistageTM GCC test, divided by the total number of
nodes examined," said Dr Yves
Fradet, President and Chief Medical Officer of DiagnoCure.
"We believe
that PrevistageTM GCC has the potential to improve
management of untreated stage II colon
cancer."
About Colorectal Cancer and PrevistageTM GCC
Every year in the United States
and Canada, 165,000 people are
diagnosed
with colorectal cancer. Of that number, 69,000 are considered at
low
risk after surgery. Nonetheless, up to 20% of them suffer
recurrence of
a more advanced cancer. To date, results of published studies
totaling
over 1,000 patients have shown that, compared with
traditionally-used
factors, the GCC biomarker is a better predictor of disease
recurrence
in early?stage colorectal cancer patients. PrevistageTM
GCC is currently the only colorectal cancer staging test that
provides
prognostic information based on the tumor burden measured at
the
molecular level in the lymph nodes. Tumor burden in the lymph nodes
has
become more widely recognized by treating physicians as a key
prognostic factor to determine the risk of recurrence of cancer
patients, and hence, to determine which patients might benefit
most
from adjuvant chemotherapy and which could be safely managed
without
chemotherapy.
About DiagnoCure
DiagnoCure (TSX: CUR; OTCQX: DGCRF) is a life sciences corporation
that
develops and commercializes high-value cancer diagnostic tests
that
increase clinician and patient confidence in making critical
treatment
decisions. In 2008, the Corporation launched a colorectal
cancer
staging test through its U.S. CLIA laboratory.
PrevistageTM GCC is currently available for licensing.
The Corporation has also
granted a worldwide exclusive license to Gen-Probe, now a
wholly-owned
subsidiary of Hologic Inc. operating as Hologic Gen-Probe, for
the
development and commercialization of a prostate cancer test using
PCA3,
DiagnoCure's proprietary molecular biomarker. Hologic
Gen-Probe's
PROGENSA® PCA3 test is commercialized in Europe under CE mark and is
approved for commercialization in Canada and the
United States. For
more information, please visit www.diagnocure.com.
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referred to the applicable general risks and uncertainties
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SOURCE DiagnoCure inc.