Partnership to advance oesophageal cancer testing

QIMR Berghofer has signed an exclusive worldwide licence agreement with Proteomics International Laboratories allowing the company to develop and commercialise a blood test for early detection of the most common form of oesophageal cancer.

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma affects the section of the digestive tract just above the stomach and is potentially fatal when diagnosed late. Unfortunately, early symptoms are vague and often masked by chronic acid reflux, which means patients don’t realise something is wrong until the disease is at a late stage and symptoms become more severe and obvious.

Currently, oesophageal cancer diagnosis involves the invasive and expensive specialist medical procedure of upper endoscopy.

Proteomics International will use blood biomarkers discovered by QIMR Berghofer scientists to develop and commercialise the simple blood test, after a joint study of more than 300 patients earlier this year validated research findings.

The blood test will target patients with Barrett’s oesophagus, which is a non-cancerous condition that increases the risk of developing oesophageal cancer.

Associate Professor Michelle Hill, the head of QIMR Berghofer’s Precision and Systems Biomedicine Laboratory, who led the discovery of the biomarkers, said the agreement could lead to better screening for oesophageal cancer.

“We envisaged that blood test-based screening will allow better use of health resources by identifying the right patients for endoscopy while reducing unnecessary procedures. Most importantly, once found, the pre-cancerous cells and early-stage oesophageal adenocarcinoma can be effectively treated, thereby improving survival from this deadly cancer,” Hill said.

Proteomics International Managing Director Dr Richard Lipscombe said, “At-risk patients are currently screened with invasive and costly endoscopy procedures.

Instead, this panel of biomarkers — or protein ‘fingerprints’ in the blood — can detect the early stages of oesophageal adenocarcinoma, which we hope to do using a simple blood test,” Lipscombe said.

The licence agreement comes after the two organisations signed a memorandum of understanding in 2020 to improve detection of oesophageal adenocarcinoma.

Proteomics International will now undertake additional studies to confirm the diagnostic performance of the potential new blood test, which will take approximately six months.

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