A Rapid PCR Test for Early Cancer Diagnosis

A novel qPCR-based diagnostic test for detecting oral cancer risk and predicting patient prognosis. qMIDSv3 is a low cost, rapid, non-invasive test to distinguish OSCC from low-risk OPMD and contralateral normal mucosa with high diagnostic sensitivity.

Oral cancer survival is directly linked to how early it is found, yet our current diagnostic pathway is blunt. Most patients with a suspicious lesion end up having an invasive biopsy even when the overwhelming likelihood is that it is benign.

This test changes that. It gives clinicians a rapid, accurate, and non-invasive way to triage patients, and crucially, it can be repeated. That means we can now monitor patients with persistent pre-malignant lesions regularly and systematically, and pick up cancers much earlier than we would have been able to before.

Serial testing could significantly improve the chances of detecting early-stage cancers in high-risk groups, at a point when treatment is most likely to be successful and survival outcomes are best.

Queen Mary is actively looking for a commercial partner to help develop the inexpensive test for clinical use. With the right partner, the test could be in use within two years.