BS! This is what the press release of May 16th 2006 stated:
"So far, in all of our studies on different cancers, we have compared the average amount of RECAF in the blood of different groups of individuals (e.g. normal donors, patients with benign tumors, or cancer patients), but the normal amount of RECAF –or any other protein in blood - varies from one individual to another. Therefore, a range of values is used to determine if a person has a cancer. This means that the RECAF value we use to determine if a person has cancer must necessarily be high in order to avoid informing a healthy individual that he has cancer, when he may just be at the upper end of the RECAF normal spectrum. But, if we did sequential blood tests on each person and assuming their RECAF value is rather constant over time; then a small change in the level of circulating RECAF would detect cancer at the earliest stages. We do not know yet if the normal RECAF concentration is constant enough to make this personalization possible. However, if it was consistent, this suggested approach might prove to be a winning strategy in the fight against cancer. We could then have an exquisitely sensitive tool to detect many types of cancer."
So that you understand what this means, if a group of normal people have very different amounts of RECAF in blood, then you need a high cutoff value in order to eliminate all (or 95%) of the normals. However, if the value is very different from one individual to another but the value is pretty constant for that individual, then you do not use the average of all normal people, you use the average value for that person.
Example with numbers using PSA:
Let us suppose that normal values vary between 0.1 and 4.5 ng/ml in normal subjects and a 4 ng/ml cutoff value included 95% of normal men (only 5% of men were between 4 and 4.5 ng/ml). Now, let us suppose that 2 guys got prostate cancer: One had 0.2 ng/ml in the previous 3 annual tests, the second one had 3.5 ng/ml in those previous 3 tests. If the cutoff value is set at 4 ng/ml, then the 2nd patient only needs to increase his usual PSA value by 0.5 ng/ml which is 0.5 / 3.5 * 100 = 14%. The 1st patient, however, needs to increase his PSA from 0.2 to 4 ng/ml which is 3.8 / 0.2 * 100 = 1,900% in order to be considered as abnormal!!!
By the time the 1st patient reaches 4 ng/ml, he is doomed...
If this second patient had a constant value of 0.2 ng/ml, then a 0.5 ng/ml would be very abnormal and should be used as an indication that there might be prostate cancer, 3.5 ng/ml BEFORE the standard cutoff was reached. That is what Dr. Moro meant when he wrote "We could then have an exquisitely sensitive tool to detect many types of cancer."
About the rest of your message:
<a BioCurex press release which indicated the need to personalize RECAF>
No, nothing in that text says that there is a NEED to personalize the RECAF test, it was advanced as an interesting possibility.
<It stated that the amount of RECAF varied from person to person>
Yes, the value of ANY biological test varies from one individual to another; that is why they follow a bell shaped curve. Glucose tests, red cell counts, etc, they all vary from one normal person to another. There is no indication in the press release as to whether that variation is large or insignificant.
<As an investor, that immediately caused me to become cautious with this investment and I have been very consistent with a cautionary tone in my posts since then>
No, you have NOT been cautious. You keep hammering this company - which you should not do as the Moderator on this board. One is cautious when one is not sure. Nobody reading your comments would conclude that you are "not sure"... You are very sure and in a very negative way, which again, is inconsistent with your role as Moderator.
