ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY) said a study by the University of Athens showed its liquid biopsy was superior to a leading antibody approach when it came to harvesting circulating tumour cells (CTC) in people with head and neck cancer.
Researchers drew blood from 50 patients and 18 healthy volunteers. The published data revealed use of the ANGLE technology resulted in much higher CTC harvesting positivity rates, purer samples, and “excellent” RNA quality for molecular analysis.
The UK med-tech company’s approach also delivered “higher relative expression levels” for key cancer genes, including PDL1, which is a target for immunotherapy drugs used for this type of cancer.
The Athens team also found a significantly higher proportion of samples tested positive for what are called DNA methylation markers, which could help the early detection of the disease.
In a statement, ANGLE chief executive Andrew Newland said: “Head and neck cancer represents a large-scale medical opportunity for the repeat deployment of ANGLE's Parsortix liquid biopsy solution, with the potential to both improve the patient outcome and simultaneously reduce spend on unsuccessful drugs."
Head and neck cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world, with 550,000 cases a year and 300,000 deaths. Five-year survival rates are 40-50%.