Mayo Clinic - Mayo Clinic Reacts to Unanimous Supreme Court Decision (patents/Prometheus/blood test)

Mayo Clinic - Mayo Clinic Reacts to Unanimous Supreme Court Decision

Mayo Clinic Reacts to Unanimous Supreme Court Decision

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

AUDIO ALERT: Additional audio resources are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — "Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in favor of Mayo Collaborative Services in a case against Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., that dates back to 2004. John Noseworthy, M.D., president & CEO, Mayo Clinic, issued the following statement in reaction to the decision:
"We are extremely pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. Mayo Clinic chose to pursue this lengthy litigation process because we believed it was in the best interests of our patients. This decision concerns the value of delivering high quality patient care in a timely manner and at an affordable cost.
"Essentially, everything we do at Mayo Clinic is about the needs of the patient and that's what this is all about. This is about everyday interactions between doctors and their patients."
At issue was a blood test developed by Prometheus that helps doctors decide the proper dosage for a drug called thiopurine, which is used to treat gastrointestinal illnesses. Mayo purchased this test until 2004, when Mayo researchers created an improved test. Prometheus sued for patent infringement and to block Mayo's use of its own test.
The decision allows other U.S. labs to offer a similar test, which will result in lower health-care costs for patients."

BMC Medicine | Abstract/free full text: Septin 9 methylated DNA is a sensitive and specific blood test for colorectal cancer (small study)

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF.

Background
About half of Americans 50 to 75 years old do not follow recommended colorectal cancer (CRC) screening guidelines, leaving 40 million individuals unscreened. A simple blood test would increase
screening compliance, promoting early detection and better patient outcomes. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the performance of an improved sensitivity blood-based Septin 9 (SEPT9) methylated
DNA test for colorectal cancer. Study variables include clinical stage, tumor location and histologic grade.

media article: Initial Trials on New Ovarian Cancer Tests (blood) Exhibit Extremely High Accuracy

Blogger's Note:
media reporting issues = watch the word 'extremely' (94 patients in study); comment on symptoms/early stage;

also note the research comment regarding lack of access to ovarian cancer patients/study ?? (needs 500 pts)

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“The caveat is we don’t currently have 500 patients with the same type of ovarian cancer, so we’re going to look at other types of ovarian cancer,” said Fernandez. “It’s possible that there are also signatures for other cancers, not just ovarian, so we’re also going to be using the same approach to look at other types of cancers. We’ll be working with collaborators in Atlanta and elsewhere.”

comments in the media item:
In addition to having a relatively low prevalence ovarian cancer is also asymptomatic in the early stages. Therefore, if further testing confirms the ability to accurately detect ovarian cancer by analyzing metabolites in the serum of women, doctors will be able detect the disease early and save many lives.

media: New blood test speeds up cancer detection (Oncimmune) | Health Tech

Stanford's Canary Center strives to find cancer sooner than every before - 2/01/10 - San Francisco News

"Scientists at the Canary Center say their first blood test, developed for ovarian cancer, is about to begin phase one clinical trials at Stanford. The first patient group will be women at high risk for ovarian cancer."

Cancer Blood Tests

"...The team made the discovery partly by accident. They were studying short pieces of RNA called micro RNAs in human tissue samples. These tiny pieces of RNA, discovered only a few years ago, play a big role in regulating genes, and are now known to be altered in cancer..... In a large majority of the cases, just by measuring the amount of micro RNA in the blood, we could tell who had cancer and who didn’t,” Tewari says."