In a study recently published in the science and medical journal Nature, it is being believed that now, it would be possible for the doctors and scientists to detect the early stages of colon cancer.
Around 42,000 colon cancer cases are reported every year and are the second most common type of cancer in the US.
If the study is to be believed, then the new technology will be able to track down the presence of cancerous cells.
The mutation present in the cancerous cell structure has already been found but with the hope to find out the reason that changes the genetic sequence and make non-cancerous cell-cancerous, they continued with the research.
With a new technology that is called laser capture microscopy, the team of researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute cut the colon tissues used for the experiment in tiny cavities known as the crypts.
The next step included the development of a technique that automated the sequencing of genomes which otherwise would have taken a lot of time.
In an earlier study where scientists were able to find the mutations that have been found in the tissues of tumors.
Now with this study, they have been able to study other mutations in the body and which of them had the chance to cause cancer, which would result in uncontrolled growth in the number of cells.
Though mutations are found in large numbers in the cells of a body, not all of them cause cancer. It is only a certain type of mutation in a certain gene that leads to cancer confirmed by Henry Lee- Six, the first author of the study.
With the development of the new technique, scientists can not only study the different types of mutations happening in different tissues and cells but also study which type of mutations are making tissues cancerous.
They have been able to identify certain patterns known as ‘Mutational Signatures’ that gave clues to the scientists the cause behind Cancer in healthy colon cells.
