Predictive Genetic Testing Service
CTC (Circulation Tumor Cells) Assay
Purpose
Tumor recurrence is often due to the spread of small cancer cells that have not been killed by drugs or radiation therapy. Single cancer cell may be metastatic from primary tumor in the early stage and then spread to different parts in our body. These metastatic cancer cells are the precursors and may form metastatic tumors. Unfortunately, standard imaging technology cannot track and localize the spread of tumor cells during the metastasis. Using efficient new biomarkers to detect the early metastasis is therefore a very important challenge.
Currently clinicians usually use imaging technology and cancer biomarkers to evaluate the invasion and treatment responses for metastatic tumors. A state-of-the-art technology is “Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) Assay”.
CTC is a phenomenon while proliferated tumor cells pass through blood vessel walls and disperse in the bloodstream to any distal parts of the body. When circulating tumor cells anchor in an organ, they will stay and grow to form new tumors, just like seeds grow in the soil. In general circulating tumor cells are rarely detected in healthy individuals or in patients with benign tumors. While more circulating tumor cells are found in patients with metastatic cancers, it indicates these cancer cells may be more aggressive. In addition, circulating tumor cell number may vary. It may increase or decrease depend on the progression of the diseases, tumor properties, and the treatment responses of patients.
CTC assay is used to measure the number of circulating tumor cells in the blood. It can be used to access outcomes after operations, to evaluate therapeutic responses and the severe level of tumor invasion. The assay report can provide information for clinicians to determine a more precise treatment plan for applying chemotherapeutic drugs and/or targeted therapy.
Leopard Gene takes advantage of an automated CTC capture platform. For pan-cancer detection, we use Anti-EpCAM to capture abnormal epithelial cells in the blood. A total of 18 different types of cancer cell can be identified by antibodies. The assay report can assist clinicians for a better evaluation of disease prognosis, treatment efficiency, and disease progression monitoring.
Personalized BRCA Assay
BRCA 1/2 Germline Panel
Purpose
Most cancers are developed due to accidentally acquired somatic mutations. In some ethnic groups (about 5-10%), some cancer types are often caused by congenital genetic defects. The most well-known examples are hereditary breast and ovarian cancers caused by BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations.
In the 1990s, American researchers have discovered the association of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes with breast and ovarian cancers. These two genes are classified as tumor-suppressor genes and are responsible for repairing double-stranded DNA damages. Hereditary BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers are those who carry one defect germline copy of BRCA1 or BRCA2 inherited from either his/her father or mother. It indicates that for the paired chromosomes one copy of the gene is defective while the other copy is normal. During the development, if the normal copy of BRCA1 and/or the BRCA2 gene mutates due to the environmental and/or other factors, it will lead to a complete defection for both BRCA1 or BRCA2 alleles. Then breast cancer (including BRCA2-related breast cancer in males), ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, and prostate cancers are prone to develop. It becomes a dominant inheritance disease for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers, and the chance of developing cancer increases with age. Among the two genes, BRCA1 has a stronger effect than BRCA2 on breast cancer. BRCA mutation carriers also have higher risk on breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, as well as other cancers. Personalized BRCA gene test is therefore recommended.
Leopard Gene Testing Service sequences all exons in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The large-segment genomic aberrations in the BRCA genes are detected by the multiple ligation probe amplification technology (MLPA) experiment. The genetic testing results can facilitate clinical diagnosis, treatment, medication, and prognosis.
Hereditary prostate cancer mutation Assay
Prostate Cancer Germline Panel
Purpose
Prostate cancer is a highly hereditary and commonly seen cancer in males. According to the cancer registration at the National Health Promotion Administration, Taiwan, the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer is the fifth and the seventh top cancer in males respectively. The research statistics showed that about 5-15% of prostate cancer patients were due to acquiring inherited genetic risk factors. Key studies showed that patients who harbor the variants in the homologous recombination repair (HRR) genes, such as BRCA1, BRCA2, ATM, PALB2, and CHEK2 will have a better response to the PARP inhibitor treatment.
Leopard Gene detects the high-risk genes related to prostate cancer by using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. This test provides comprehensive information for identified genetic mutation and assist clinicians for evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and medication of prostate cancer.
Comprehensive health risk detection
Purpose
Leopard Gene provides personalized genetic testing services for common diseases and cancers. By understanding your own genetic profile through genetic sequence scanning, you will be able to make a comprehensive plan to manage your health and wellness, prevent onset of high-risk diseases.
Frequently asked questions
Many major diseases such as allergies, obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and so on are derived from genetic genes, leading to long-term illness and medication, which cannot be effectively cured.
Majority of the people don’t think that genes are the main factors affecting current health conditions, but only believe that genes determine a person’s genetic factors at birth. But what we don’t know is that genes affect health every minute and every second.
The latest epigenetics studies have found that genes can also be transformed into disease-causing genes due to the acquired environment. If you take medications for a long time, are under stress, malnutrition, bad emotional state, or in a chemical environment, you could expose your genes to an environment prone to diseases, and you will easily become a high-risk group for major diseases.
The cause of illness in modern people is mainly due to the interaction of genetic factors from the genetic material (DNA) variation provided by parents and environmental factors from daily life. When living in an environment with poor gene expression for a long time in life, it is easy to cause diseases.
Genes are not destiny, and genes are not fate. Your genes are dynamic, changeable, and change with your thoughts and behaviors.
Your physique determines what disease you will get! Human physique is divided into “nature” and “nurture”. Innate physique is related to heredity, including looks, diseases, and physique inherited from your parents and more than half determines your healthy destiny after birth. Acquired physique is a variable of future health. It is usually a personal life habits accumulation over the years, including diet, work and rest, living environment, personality, emotions and so on. Nature physique can reverse health. Even if a person’s nature physique is at a disadvantage, through acquired recuperation, the innate bad factors may change from dominant to recessive; on the contrary, the original inborn advantage will also change due to acquired disorders.
Genetic testing can help individuals understand their natural physique and the risk of various diseases and through the improvement of life style and diet preference, the probability of various diseases can be effectively reduced.
When early cancer cells are confined to the diseased organ, they usually have no symptoms. When the tumor gradually enlarges and compresses the neighboring organs, some mild symptoms will appear. Unfortunately, these vague symptoms are often ignored. If only the annual health check is used to know the health status of the body, it is easy to ignore the small warning signs that appear on the body and miss the opportunity to find cancer in the first time.
If “genetic testing” is combined with routine health checks, personal health management of “early detection and early treatment” can be implemented, and the concept of preventive medicine can be realized.
The Chinese have known the importance of heredity and physique since ancient times. Formerly called physique, now called gene. For a long time, many people have used genes and family history to examine and predict their own health performance. When they are sick, they naturally regard genes as the culprit of illness. In fact, genes are not fate. As long as the changes in life style, diet preference, emotional state and environment can “cover” the genetic errors that cause cancer.
If you currently have no health problems, preventive health care is relatively more important. Preventive genetic testing can predict health problems that may occur in the future before your body has symptoms, so that you can face, prepare, and manage health situation earlier.