Italian researchers have made a key breakthrough in the diagnosis of liver cancer.
A team led by Annalucia Serafino of the National Research Council in Rome found that human Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) was present in "unusually high" amounts in patients with cirrhosis of the liver who went on to develop liver tumours.
"We have discovered statistically conspicuous amounts of NGF in a significant number of patients," Serafino told the World Journal of Gastroenterology.
"If we manage to replicate the results in a sufficiently large group of patients we will move ahead with work aimed at catching the tumours before they have the time to become life-threatening," said Serafino, who worked with hospitals in Roma and Marino.
"A simple blood test should do the trick".
NGF was discovered in the 1960s by eminent Italian scientist Rita Levi Montalcini and US researcher Stanley Cohen. Their work won them a Nobel Prize in 1986.
