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’, 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 that is typically present when patients become less sensitive to drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors. This is relevant to TKI drugs such as  Erlotinib and Gefitinib which are widely used in the treatment of non-small cell lung carcinoma.

Generally, T790M positive patients have a much lower overall survival rate. The researchers concluded that EKF’s PointMan™ technology was an easy and useful method for non-invasively determining plasma EGFR T790M mutation status and therefore 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 which is 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.”

Reference:

1. Nishikawa, S. et al. Non-invasive analysis for T790M mutations of EGFR using a selective amplification method. American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015.