Microbiome Test for the Detection of Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second cause of cancer death in the US. The pathogenesis of CRC is complex, involving a progressive transition of the healthy colonic mucosa to pre-cancerous polyps, and eventually to CRC. One of the factors that are proposed to cause this 'adenoma-carcinoma sequence' is the dysbiosis of the gut microbiome.

The gut microbiota has been identified as a potential screening biomarker for CRC, since studies have reported specific bacterial taxa and/ or microbial signatures as important factors in the etiology of CRC.

Hypothesis:

comprehensive and cutting-edge metagenomic analysis of the fecal microbiome of individuals with colonic polyps vs. patients without polyps will identify microbial signatures associated with colonic polyps and will define these microbial signatures as biomarkers and risk factors for CRC.

method:

• Collect data (anthropometric, demographic, dietary, lifestyle habits, medical and family history) and stool & optional Saliva sample for microbiome analysis from a cohort of 600 colonoscopies screened individuals.
• Analyze this data with an aim to utilize advanced artificial intelligence and machine-learning techniques to classified microbiome signatures, which are correlated to colonoscopy (and to histological) results.
• Blinded Validation - A sub-cohort of 300 individuals (who are part of the 600 individuals) that were not used to classify the biomarkers signatures will be used to validate the diagnosis model.

Data analysis:

The stool and optional Saliva samples will be sent to metagenomic sequencing, thereby generating FASTQ libraries of the reads found in the stool & saliva samples. These files will be analyzed by the BiotaX diagnostics platform.

No Human DNA analysis will take place at this clinical study. Only a microbial analysis will take place.