Invited participants can visit the Hospital Público de Montecelo, where sample extractions will continue until Thursday, November 19. The collection hours are from 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM, requiring a prior appointment and no fasting. Healthcare personnel will inform participants about the research study process.
For this new sample collection, 2,156 SMS invitation messages were randomly sent to residents in the Pontevedra district. The objective is to engage 431 people from the municipalities of Pontevedra.
The Xenoma Galicia project, backed by a €20 million investment from the Xunta, aims to collect DNA from 400,000 Galicians to identify genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, Lynch syndrome, and familial hypercholesterolemia.
To date, 3,112 biological samples have been analyzed. Specifically, 1,037 blood samples were processed in the project's first pilot, 796 saliva samples in the second pilot, and now, with the first phase underway, 1,279 samples from volunteers in the initial participating districts have been analyzed.
The analysis of samples from these 1,279 phase 1 participants has led to the identification of 25 additional positive cases for the screened pathologies. Specifically, 14 participants tested positive for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, 2 for Lynch syndrome, and 9 for familial hypercholesterolemia.
In total, 53 positives have been detected so far: 19 from the blood pilot, 9 from the saliva pilot, and 25 from the ongoing phase 1. Of these, 30 positives are for breast and ovarian cancer, 7 for Lynch Syndrome, 1 positive for both hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and Lynch Syndrome, and 15 positive for familial hypercholesterolemia.
Coordinated by the Consellería de Sanidade (Department of Health) and directed by researchers from the Fundación Pública Galega de Medicina Xenómica María Brión and Ángel Carracedo, this project will contribute to designing new programs for early and personalized prevention and detection. It will also lay the groundwork for sustainable and equitable genetic screening.
