GE Healthcare, Edinburgh Molecular Imaging (EM Imaging), a spinout company from the University of Edinburgh, and Dyax Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, have signed a licensing agreement to complete the development of a new optical imaging agent that may improve the detection of early-stage colorectal cancer.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the world and almost 1.4 million new cases were diagnosed in 2012, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International. Screening with a colonoscope is the standard for detecting colorectal cancer, but it can miss up to 25 percent of precancerous growths.

The imaging agent is called EMI-137 and it has already been tested in a recent study that was published in the journal Natural Medicine. The researchers found that EMI-137 helped physicians see more early-stage colorectal cancer and precancerous tumors, which can be easily removed through colonoscopy.

When the physicians administered EMI-137 to the participants and performed fluorescence colonoscopy, all neoplastic polyps were visible with white light as well as previously missed polyps that were not visible with white light alone. Out of the 47 precancerous polyps that were detected in the study, 12 were missed with a standard colonoscope.

“This underlines how unreliable this method can be, and we therefore welcome lifesaving new technology like EMI-137,” Dr. James Hardwick, lead investigator of the study, said in a statement.

EMI-137 has the potential to image a variety of cancers including breast, esophageal, ovarian, thyroid, bile duct carcinoma and lung cancer. Before the end of 2015, EM Imaging is planning on conducting studies to investigate the new agent’s ability to help visualize tumors during surgery.

Rad Oncology Homepage