Researcher Antoni Castells of the IDIBAPS explained the present and the future of screening techniques for colon cancer, the most common cancer and second leading cause of death in Spain. It was on May 31 at a conference framed in IDIBELL seminar series.

“The techniques we use today, despite having limitations, are effective and cost-effective” Castells said “but none of them are perfect. We need new strategies that allow us to detect early tumor or adenoma, the precursor lesion”.

Castells is working on the identification of biomarkers in feces and blood. As explained by the researcher whether these markers have the expected sensitivity could be a good tool to improve screening. “What we want is very sensitive biomarkers that help us to divide the population into groups without risk and risk groups. With the patients in this second group specific tools would be used to detect colon cancer and colonoscopy”.