In a new study titled “The Usefulness of a Novel Screening Kit for Colorectal Cancer Using the Immunochromatographic Fecal Tumor M2 Pyruvate Kinase Test “, published in the Gut and Liver journal, a team of researchers from the Korea College of Medicine assessed the usefulness of immunochromatographic M2 pyruvate kinase (iM2-PK) for the screening of colorectal cancer (CRC) and premalignant lesions.
The M2 pyruvate kinase (M2-PK) is an isoenzyme of pyruvate kinase that is mostly fabricated in undifferentiated and proliferating tissues. However, in cancer cells this isoenzyme plays a key role in tumor growth and glycolysis. As such, its stool levels have been evaluated as a novel-screening tool for CRC detection, and previous enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA) assays have shown it can reach sensitivity and specificity rates of 80.3% and 95.2%, respectively. Nonetheless, ELISA assays are costly and not available for common clinical practice.
As a response to this problem, the research team developed a new immunochromatographic qualitative method for fecal tumor M2-PK detection (iM2-PK), which can be preformed in a relatively short time and costs about half the price of a M2-PK ELISA test. As such, it can be used for fresh stool samples in clinical centers without the need to send them to a laboratory.
The team enrolled a total of 323 subjects who suffered from colorectal neoplasia, along with healthy volunteers in six different hospitals and compared M2-PK levels using the new immunochromatographic technique (iM2-PK), immunochromatographic fecal occult blood test (iFOBT) and fecal tumor M2-PK ELISA.
The results demonstrated that iM2-PK’s sensitivity for CRC and adenomatous lesions was of 92.8% and 69.4%, respectively, which was significantly superior to the 47.5% and 12.1% observed for iFOBT.
Also, when researchers compared iM2-PK with M2-PK ELISA, the new assay showed superior sensitivity for CRC detection (97.5% vs 80.0%), which was further increased in more advanced stages of the disease. Importantly, lymph node metastasis had no influence on the sensitivity of iM2-PK.
Overall, this novel iM2-PK test showed a significantly higher sensitivity for CRC and colon adenomatous lesions’ detection.
As the authors state in their study, “the iM2-PK has strength in its affordable cost, convenience in use and the rapidity for result. iM2-PK may be a reliable and acceptable screening method for CRC”
