---

Kurzfassung

Scientists of the medical school of Saarland University developed a new immunocytochemical double-staining for a reliable detection of high-grade cervical dysplasia to avoid overtreatment and complications resulting thereof.

---

Hintergrund

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women with approximately 570.000 new cases in 2018. The most common reason for cervical cancer is a persisting infection with high-risk HP-viruses. Since low grade and moderate cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), which occur rather frequently, show a high potential for complete healing, only a few women actually develop malignant lesions. As the sensitivity and specificity of cervical cytology varies widely, numerous biomarkers for epithelial lesions have been investigated and established.

---

Problemstellung

It is still challenging to detect and only treat high-grade lesions which lack the potential of self-healing. This in turn leads to a large number of cases of overtreatment. There is a great need for reliable testings concerning CIN classification of a specimen to avoid overtreatment and complications, which can occur thereof.

---

Lösung

Scientists of the medical school of Saarland University developed a new immunocytochemical double-staining for Sec62 and Ki67. Sec62 is used as an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) marker, whilst Ki67 is widely used as proliferation marker. This method offers an opportunity for the highly precise detection of high-grade cervical lesions (CIN3+). Sensitivity and specificity of the Sec62/Ki67 double-staining are 100% and 84,09% for CIN3+ lesions. Same samples showed for the double-staining of p16 and Ki67 also a sensitivity of 100% but an obviously lower specificity of 77,27% for CIN3+.

 

---

Vorteile

• overtreatment and complications resulting from unnecessary interventions can be prevented
• applicable and safe way to test for cervical malignancies during pregnancy

---

Anwendungsbereiche

• cervical cancer screening
• precise grading of (pre-)malignant cervical lesions
• the staining is potentially also applicable for the detection of other HPV-induced (pre-)malignant lesions (for example oropharyngeal cancers)

---

Service

We are looking for partners who are interested in commercialization of the invention. Various licensing models are negotiable.