The study will have two other notable features. To be cost-efficient, the vast majority of studies that try to associate DNA alterations with cancer look at people at high risk of getting the disease or already suffering from it. But to determine stool DNA's value as a broad screening agent, the new project will instead draw its 4,000 subjects from the general population. In another departure, the study will use DNA changes as a springboard for finding cancer, not for treating it. "There's probably a hundred times more research on the therapeutic implications of [mutations] than on their diagnostic and preventative applications," notes Bert Vogelstein, director of the molecular genetics laboratory at Johns Hopkins Oncology Center.
Vogelstein, who is not involved in the upcoming large-scale study, argues that this ratio shouldn't be nearly so lopsided. DNA-based screening "is a really exciting and pretty realistic possibility," he observes. "It's not just ...
