Biomarker validation of anti-TMUC1 antibody in breast cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Biomarker validation of anti-TMUC1 antibody (TAB004) in breast cancer serum samples from UKCTOCS biobank
IRAS ID
189473
Contact name
Usha Menon
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UCL
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Breast cancer is a major global health concern with 1,384,000 women being diagnosed every year. Despite the fact that breast cancer is one of the few cancers where screening methods are well established, it remains the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. Significant advances in breast cancer prevention have been accompanied by growing controversies regarding breast cancer screening. Although screening programmes using mammography are in place in many countries there are still areas where improvements are needed. For example, it is difficult to detect breast cancer in women with dense breast tissue, the cost of implementing mammography is relatively high in comparison to the benefits and over-diagnosis does occur. Currently, mammograms miss 25% of breast cancers overall and 50% of cancers in women with dense breast tissue who are also at a four to six times higher lifetime risk to develop breast cancer. Therefore, a simple, low-cost antibody-based blood test with high sensitivity and specificity could be used as a complement to current screening by imaging techniques. The aim of this project is to investigate the performance of a promising serum-based biomarker, TMUC1, for the earlier diagnosis of breast cancer using the pre-diagnosis serum samples from the UKCTOCS biobank in collaboration with OncoTAb, USA.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0713
Date of REC Opinion
16 Nov 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion