Tumors Shed Cells
Tumors begin shedding tumor cells that circulate in your bloodstream, known as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), potentially as early as they are born, well before the tumor has grown enough to be visible in imaging.
Finding CTCs Indicates a Problem
CTCs begin shedding from a tumor into your bloodstream as the tumor attempts to spread throughout your body. Hence, the earlier we can detect the CTCs, the earlier we can try to stop the cancer in its tracks.
Broad Spectrum Screening
Cancer Check uses specialized filtration processes that can extract atypical, potentially malignant tumor cells, from the blood at unprecedented scale. Because we filter the cells based on their physical and mechanical properties, we can capture tumor cells from any type or subtype of solid tumor as they all share similar physical and mechanical properties.
Cutting Edge Processing & Analysis
The processing includes staining the atypical cells we isolate and identifying the cell's markers using established methods to create highly interpretable slides. Pathologists, who are trained to specifically analyze tissue, blood, and cells, analyze those slides and cell markers to identify whether or not the atypical cells are tumor cells as well as the likely source of the tumor, also known as the tissue of origin (i.e., where is it coming from).
Finding CTCs for Quick Intervention
Fundamentally, CTCs must be shed from an underlying primary tumor (they need an origin, a source). Thereby, the presence of CTCs in the bloodstream is indicative of cancer and should warrant further investigation.
Early Detection
Rather than waiting for the tumor to grow and to continue spreading until it is finally large enough to be visible on imaging or felt as a lump, Cancer Check seeks to identify CTCs as early as possible. For example, one gram of tumor mass is rarely palpable (you cannot feel it) and it is hard to image (tough to see). However, that single gram of tumor mass sheds and emits up to an estimated 3.2 million CTCs per day into your bloodstream. With our proprietary process to analyze blood at scale, we can process sufficiently large enough samples to detect CTCs at the earliest of stages.
