Multi-cancer early detection (MCED) could prevent 26% of all cancer-related deaths - an effect larger than averting all deaths from breast cancer alone. However, a societal program to implement MCED requires a practical, noninvasive, and affordable diagnostic modality that is sensitive and specific to all forms of cancers. Liquid biopsies represent front-runner modalities to this end but virtually all of them rely on genomics biomarkers, typically circulating free DNA (cfDNA), which capture <20% of cancers in stage I. In addition, they miss certain cancer types that shed little cfDNA, like brain or genitourinary tumors. Pilot studies show that free glycosaminoglycan profiles in plasma and urine, or free GAGomes, were promising noninvasive biomarkers of cancer metabolism that detected over a third of stage I cancers across 14 types, including brain and genitourinary tumors.
LEVANTIS-0087A (LEV87A) is a retrospective in vitro diagnostics clinical validation population cohort-based case-control study to validate the diagnostic performance of free GAGome-based tests for multi-cancer early detection in adults asymptomatic for cancer with no recent history of cancer.
LEVANTIS-0087A is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05235009).
