EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc (AIM: EKF), the AIM-listed point-of-care, central laboratory, and molecular diagnostics business, announces that data on its PointMan™ DNA enrichment technology has been presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015 in Philadelphia, USA.
In a scientific poster entitled, ‘Non-invasive analysis for T790M mutations of EGFR using a selective amplification method’ [1], researchers from the Kanazawa University Hospital (Kanazawa, Japan) presented a study aiming to develop a blood-based, non-invasive approach to detect the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation in lung cancer. EGFR T790M is a mutation typically present when patients become less sensitive to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This is relevant to TKI drugs such as Erlotinib and Gefitinib, which are widely used in treating non-small cell lung carcinoma. Generally, T790 M-positive patients have a much lower overall survival rate. The researchers concluded that EKF’s PointMan™ technology was an easy and valuable method for non-invasively determining plasma EGFR T790M mutation status and identifying a potential change in treatment path in late-stage lung cancer patients.
Commenting on the presentation, Julian Baines, CEO of EKF Diagnostics, said: “AACR is one of the most prestigious annual oncology conferences with well over 18,500 attendees. To have a scientific poster accepted for presentation at such an event shows that traction is developing for the PointMan™ DNA enrichment system, a platform technology for a whole series of products identifying specific DNA mutations. The comment from the researchers that PointMan™ represents a novel method for selective amplification of genotype-specific sequences, which is both useful and easy to use, is very encouraging.”
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