Precision Prevention

Early detection of GC offers the best opportunity for improving patient survival outcomes. Currently, endoscopy is the gold standard for diagnosing GC, however performing mass endoscopic screening of the general population in Singapore is too costly and invasive. Targeted endoscopic sceening may be more cost-effective in countries like Singapore with low to intermediate GC incidence. A comprehensive strategy for the early detection and prevention of GC for the population at risk, and for the surveillance of high risk patients is hence required.

A pre-defined ”high-risk” cohort comprising 3000 Chinese subjects of age > 50 years was recruited to explore the feasibility and yield of endoscopic screening in the Singapore population (Gastric Cancer Epidemiology Programme, GCEP). GCEP aims to identify an optimum approach and cost-effective algorithm for targeted screening of gastric cancer in the local population. Besides generation of invauable clinical data, biological materials were also banked from GCEP patients both at initial recruitment and subsequent follow-up visits, including blood, gastric biopsies,and gastric juices. The samples in the bio-bank proves to be invaluable for biomarker discovery efforts.