LONDON - Doctors may soon be able to save lives by checking stool samples for evidence of cancer.

A new stool test could one day help spot colorectal cancer, one of the most common cancers in the industrialised world, which can now can usually be detected only with uncomfortable invasive procedures.

Scientists have long been looking for telltale signs in the stools of cancer sufferers that would allow for a less invasive test. According to a paper published in British journal The Lancet, they found such signs in DNA in the stools.

Hannes M Mueller, from Austria's Medical University Innsbruck, and colleagues were able to distinguish stools of patients with colorectal cancer from those of healthy patients by examining chemical changes to DNA found in the stool.

A gene known as SFRP2 was more likely to have undergone a chemical process called "methylation" in the stools of cancer sufferers than in those of healthy individuals.

"To our knowledge, SFRP2 methylation represents one of the most sensitive markers for identifying colorectal cancer...in stool samples," wrote Martin Winschwendter, the study's principle investigator.

He said it still remained to be seen whether a group of markers could be found that would identify the stools of cancer sufferers at an early stage.

(Agencies via Xinhua)

v