Care Free,
Is this the paragraph you are refering to?
RECAF for Cancer Diagnosis
The anecdotal evidence seemed interesting to me, but that's all there was.
A company called "BioCurex" is offering the public a series of tests for cancer based on the claim that the receptor for alpha-fetoprotein is widely expressed on malignant cells but not on benign cells. The site is filled with information for investors, and I've had inquiries from members of the public who want to best tested. The site claims (February 4, 2008) that "results have consistently proven that BioCurex successfully detects over 90% of all cancers in blood or tissue samples -- levels significantly above any present method." There are descriptions of presentations at open scientific meetings, but I could not find any peer-reviewed papers, accepted or published.
Click here for a copy of the scientific paper, which I downloaded on February 4, 2008. The results are sensational, and if they are correct, will certainly find their way into the peer-reviewed literature soon. There are 61 citations, but none with a title that seems to suport the claim that this is a tumor marker -- able to distinguish benign from malignant cells -- and a possible therapeutic target that has been successful in animals. Interestingly, BioCurex claims to be in collaboration with Abbott Labs, but clicking their link to Abbott's supposed news release about the relationship reveals "no results." One problem that I have with the paper is that the pathology photos are all in black-and-white, making them un-interpretable. Since this is a .pdf document, it would have been every bit as easy to have them in color. Photo 3B, which supposedly illustrates a tiny metastatic focus against a non-staining normal background, also appears to show massive, intense staining of what looks like the benign lymph node connective tissue structure.
In the meantime, I have contacted the company and expressed an interest in working with them to see whether their claims can withstand scrutiny by the usual methods of science. As a pathologist, it would be a simple matter to confirm or refute the claim, made in the review, that cancers stain and non-cancerous tissue does not stain. All sections taken from resected cancers contain benign cells. There are always tumor blood vessels, and usually surrounding normal tissue. It would be a simple matter to stain one section from each of perhaps 100 known cancers, from the local hospital pathology lab. If the company's claim is true, then most of the cancers should light up, without any staining of the benign cells either within or adjacent to the tumor. This is normal procedure for pilot-studying a proposed new immnostain.
I was able to find (again, Feb. 2008) only two peer-reviewed articles applicable to the subject. One is from Tum. Bio. 27: 283, 2008, from a Japanese group that found a high level of expression of alpha-fetoprotein receptor in gastric cancers. An article from Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy 2: 709-735, 2002 (this is an obscure journal of which I'd never heard before) deals with alpha-fetoprotein in cancer, but simply states that there's now an agreement that a receptor exists. This isn't original work, but a review with a great deal of speculation here about possible future directions.
The company has the integrity to note, in the report, that its findings remain to be independently confirmed. Since it is soliciting investors, we can hope this will happen soon.
As a physician concerned about the well-being of the public, I must caution visitors simply to avoid basing any major health decision solely on the results of a "RECAF" test for cancer.
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