Quick Hits: Urine Biomarker = Early Cancer Detection

When it comes to battling cancer, early detection is paramount. A recent New Atlas article noted a new urine test that can detect bladder cancer up to 10 years before clinical signs appear. A long-term study from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monitored urine samples from 50,000 healthy Iranian subjects for a period of 10 years. The researchers were looking for mutations in the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene, which are common in many cases of bladder cancer.