Italian scientists have found that a profile of short-chain fatty acids in blood serum can identify colorectal cancer, celiac disease and obesity with up to 95% accuracy, while the traditional stool test falls far short of this method. This is reported by infohub.kz.
The study was carried out by specialists in Florence and published in the scientific journal "QJM: An International Journal of Medicine". The authors compared the diagnostic value of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) profiles in blood and stool in colorectal cancer, celiac disease and obesity. They found that acid concentrations in the bloodstream provide a clearer clinical picture than intestinal biomaterial.
The work involved 193 people: 30 patients with non-metastatic colon cancer, 35 with celiac disease, 33 with obesity and 95 healthy volunteers. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the authors measured the levels of seven acids, including acetic, butyric, propionic, valeric and isovaleric acid. The data were then fed into a machine learning model.
The algorithm based on stool analysis showed a classification accuracy of only 59%, correctly identifying just half of the cancer patients. By contrast, the model based on blood serum reached 95% accuracy, and combining both tests raised the result to 97%.
Valeric, propionic, 2-methylbutyric and isobutyric acids made the largest contribution to diagnosis. Fecal profiles did not reflect the concentration of metabolites in the blood vessels, which confirms that the absorption of substances transforms the biomarkers. The new method opens up prospects for the early detection of gastrointestinal cancer.