'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in late-stage cancer diagnoses, with restrictions preventing or discouraging many from getting screened early. But a new screening technology developed by a Canadian company could make it easier to detect cancers earlier.
StageZero Life Sciences is a Richmond Hill, Ont.-based health care company that has developed a way to simultaneously screen for a wide variety of cancers using a single blood sample. Some of the cancers that StageZero can detect include breast, cervical, endometrial, prostate, liver, stomach, bladder and colorectal.
"We're adding a whole series of additional ones. And as we continue to build out, we'll continue to add to them," StageZero Chairman and CEO James Howard-Tripp told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
The test uses mRNA technology to analyze gene signatures in the patient's blood sample and cross-reference them with genetic profiles of individuals who have had cancer.
"We'll take a sample of your blood and we then measure it to see whether it matches. Clearly, if it does that, we're going to say with very high probability that you have (cancer)," said Howard-Tripp.
If mRNA sounds familiar, that's because it's the same technology that's been used to develop the COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna.
Howard-Tripp says the blood tests can detect cancers with 98 to 99 per cent accuracy at any stage, even in very early stages. If the blood test comes up as positive for a cancer, the patient would be advised to see a pathologist for a traditional lab test to confirm the diagnosis.
"We will always tell you that we're not the definitive test. The definitive test is always a piece of tissue in front of the pathologist," Howard-Tripp said.
Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, an estimated 229,200 new cancer cases and 84,600 cancer deaths are expected in 2021.
But being able to detect cancers in the earlier stages can significantly increase the likelihood of survival. For example, patients with colorectal cancers detected in stage one or two have a five-year survival rate of around 90 per cent, Howard-Tripp says.
"If you find it late, at stages three and four, you've got a 10 to 14 per cent chance of being alive in five year's time. More than two-thirds of the time, colorectal cancer is found late," he said.
Howard-Tripp says the pandemic has resulted in a "tsunami" of late-stage cancer diagnoses.
"COVID has had an absolutely massive impact on healthcare, because you don't go and see your physician because of all the difficulties with it, unless you're really ill. And at that point, you're by and large symptomatic. If you are symptomatic, you're by and large late stage," he explained.
So far, StageZero's blood tests have been made available in clinics in the Greater Toronto Area and parts of the United States. Howard-Tripp says anyone who is worried that they're at a heightened risk of cancer due to age, heritage, family history or any other factors can get screened.
"It really is simply available to anyone that might have a concern," he said.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Canucks as Vancouver kicks off a second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.