'Promising tools' for quantitative analysis of CSF cancer biomarkers

The quantitative analysis of biomarkers for cancer in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has historically required a number of different techniques to be used in concert, researchers say.

Writing in Fluids and Barriers of the CNS, a periodical dedicated to disseminating research into health and disease in the central nervous system, the team from Penn State University list capillary electrophoresis and time-of-flight mass spectrometry among the new methods that may assist in the process.

Previous alternatives have included neuroimaging, neurological examination and cytology, each of which reportedly carries a lack of sensitivity when used in quantitative analysis of CSF cancer biomarkers.

"As systemic therapies for cancer improve, the CNS is becoming a more common site of disease recurrence," the scientists note.

By combining cell-based detection techniques with those systemic therapeutic agents, they suggest that multiple medical advantages may be achieved at once, while the CSF can be used as an early-warning system for the recurrence of cancer.