Page 9 - Bio Engineering Approaches to Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

6 CHAPTER 1 Introduction

and produce products that are not observed in normal dividing cells [39]. Recently, it
has been reported that these biochemical “switches” lead to uncontrolled multiplica-
tion of cancer cells as seen in a type of leukemia. Hence, it has been suggested that
targeting tumor switches can lead to the treatment of cancers [24]. However, it is
unclear how this approach can be used to optimize tumor immunotherapy.

1.5 Immunoassay diagnosis technics in cancer
Cancer is a disease that can be cured if it is rapidly diagnosed. There are many
diagnostic technics available today, however, the survival rate of late-stage cancers
remains low due to late diagnosis [40]. What can be known as ideally is diagnos-
ing and treating cancer at its early stages. Hence, this is the main purpose of much
of the technics and research happening until today. From the 20th century, it was
understood that cancer is a genetic disease which means that it happens based on
genomic changes on some genes especially those which control the cell function in
growing and divide which underpins the core element of today’s diagnostic meth-
ods [41]. The Human Genome Project, has completed in 2003, marked a dramatic
shift in the understanding of cancer and other diseases. After 13 years, researchers
mapped the entire human genetic code, discovering that every human cell is packed
with an estimated 20,000–30,000 genes. Researchers have used the discoveries to
link dozens of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and inherited colon cancer, to
specific genes.
Genes contain instructions that play an important role in protein production.
In cancer study, it was discovered that these genome changes cause the changes
in protein production. For instance, in some cancers, it causes more growth pro-
tein production or misshapen protein that all of them lead to evade cells from
a normal situation. With regard to cancer, researchers have discovered that two
genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, are associated with breast and ovarian cancers. They
have understood that the alternation in these genes causes overproduction of pro-
tein HER2 [42]. With this knowledge, they have investigated drug for treatment
of breast cancer. The advances in genomic technologies have numerously facili-
tated the understanding of cancer progression and metastasis, and the discovery of
novel biomarkers today is known as one of the main technics in cancer diagnosis.
Genomic testing in the diagnosis of cancer has two main approaches. The first
technic looks at very small numbers of genes, called single/limited gene panel
testing. The second technic analyses a larger number of genes called multigene
panel testing. These technics could be used as a diagnostic method in the early
stage. It is known that inherited genetic abnormalities can lead to the cancer which
detects mutations passed down from one generation to the next. Genomic based
technics were large progress in cancer diagnosis, however, they have certain dis-
advantages. Genomic-based alterations are difficult to correlate with a particular
disease feature, and it has been difficult to specify which proteins interact. This
means that they provide limited information about the disease or heterogeneous