I believe that the TM simply indicates a trade mark and that the assay is
for DR-70. It is a proprietary assay marketed by a company called AMDL Inc.
and I can find only one scientific paper on Medline which looks at it
(reference below). AMDL have a web page explaining the test
(http://www.amdlcorporate.com/dr-70.html) - but I can't see that they
actually describe what the DR-70 antigen is. On their home page they
announce they are to start selling into the UK through a company called
Suresceen Diagnostics. Watch this space! I'll leave it up to you to decide
on the test's validity.
J Immunoassay 1998 Feb;19(1):63-72
Clinical performance of the AMDL DR-70 immunoassay kit for cancer detection.
Wu D, Zhou X, Yang G, Xie Y, Hu M, Wu Z, Yang G, Lu M.
Department of Clinical Laboratory, 2nd Affiliated Hospital, Hubei Medical
University, Wuchang, Wuhan, China.
A clinical study using DR-70 immunoassay for the detection of 13 different
cancers have been conducted with 277 healthy subjects and 136 cancer
patients. The test results showed that the DR-70 immunoassay kit was capable
of detecting cancers with high degree of specificity and sensitivity. At 95%
specificity level, the sensitivity of the assay was 87.8%, 92.6%, 65.2% and
66.7%, respectively for lung, stomach, breast and rectum cancers.
Furthermore the test kits were shown to be stable and performed
reproducibly.
Publication Types:
* Clinical Trial
* Controlled Clinical Trial
PMID: 9530612 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Steve Davis
Department of Clinical Biochemistry
Royal Glamorgan Hospital
Ynysmaerdy
PONTYCLUN
CF72 8XR
Tel : +44 (0)1443 443357
Fax: +44 (0)1443 443355
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Smith, Helen [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 12:02 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: DR-70TM assay
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Can anyone help me with this?
>
> One of our GP's 'phoned me this morning about a patient who has brought a
> newspaper article, where it is claimed measuring DR-70TM in blood can
> diagnose upto 13 cancers.
>
> Am I being particularly ignorant? Or is this one of those Daily Mail good
> news stories based more on fantasy than fact?
>
> All info. grateful received.
>
> Thanks
>
> Helen Smith
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