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Using proteomics for cancer detection refers to searching for biomarkers based on the differences between profiles of serum proteins in cancer patients versus controls. For example, higher amounts of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) are found in pooled sera of prostate cancer patients than in pooled sera of healthy men; even though PSA is an imperfect biomarker for prostate cancer, it still is used widely as a screening test because the assay is simple. Serum biomarkers for early colorectal cancer have not yet been described, but, in this study, German researchers used technology called surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry to identify proteins with higher expression in colorectal cancer patients than …