Assays and methods for diagnosing and treating autoimmune diseases. Particularly, the invention provides methods for differential diagnosis of specific autoimmune diseases, including autoimmune rheumatic disorders.

The present invention relates to C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) binding proteins and uses thereof in methods of detecting and/or diagnosing a condition in a subject, comprising determining a level of CXCL10 in the subject. Specific antibodies that bind to total CXCL10 (full-length, N-terminally truncated and citrullinated) and antibodies that bind active CXCL10 (full-length) were used to measure the level of total and active CXCL10 in samples from ovarian cancer patients. The calculated ratio of active to total CXCL10 was lower in patients with malignant condition when compared to patients with benign tumours or healthy individuals and is the basis of method of diagnosis of malignant conditions, monitoring tumour burden and disease progression.

The present invention provides a method for quantifying a monoclonal (M-) protein in a sample of a subject, the method comprising the steps of:—subjecting a serum sample of a subject to serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) in a gel, preferably serum protein electrophoresis in an agarose gel, to separate serum proteins into different serum protein fractions, optionally followed by immunofixation electrophoresis (IFE) and further optionally involving immunostaining of the gel;—excising from said gel a gel part comprising, or suspected of comprising, a M-protein;—performing an enzymatic digestion of proteins present in said gel part in order to provide a peptide digest comprising at least one M-protein peptide;—subjecting said peptide digest comprising said at least one M-protein peptide to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to determine a quantity of said at least one M-protein peptide, thereby quantifying said M-protein in said sample.

The inventors assessed in locally advanced rectal cancer whether a diagnostic biopsy-adapted Immunoscore (ISg) could predict response to neoadjuvant treatment (nT) and better define patients eligible to an organ preservation strategy (“Watch-and-Wait”). The inventors showed that IS.sub.B was an independent parameter, more informative than pre- (P<0.001) and post-nT (P<0.05) imaging to predict disease-free survival. IS.sub.B combined with imaging post-nT discriminated very good responders that could benefit from organ preservation strategy. Accordingly, the present invention relates to methods for predicting the recurrence and/or death of patients suffering from a solid cancer after preoperative adjuvant therapies.

The present invention is directed to methods for detecting a plasma cell dyscrasia like myeloma or MGUS, methods for determining whether a plasma cell dyscrasiais stable or progressive, methods for determining a risk for disease relapse, and methods for determining a response by a subject having a plasma cell dyscrasia to a therapy.

The present disclosure provides, inter alia, compositions and methods for harnessing the immune system (e.g., T cells) as a detection tool to diagnose and predict cancer patient treatment outcomes and for monitoring the persistence of functional, non-genetically modified, T cell therapies in vivo after administration to a subject.

The invention relates to methods of cardiovascular imaging and/or measurement of blood markers for detecting, diagnosing and/or prognosing cardiac or myocardial microbleeds, especially in subject with hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. Treatment methods are also provided for subjects identified, diagnosed, prognosed, or detected with cardiac or myocardial microbleeds. In some embodiments, the subject has hypertension-induced microbleeds, but has not had a myocardial infarction or reperfusion therapy.

Methods and apparatuses for athletic performance and technique monitoring are disclosed. In one example, a sensor output is received associated with a movement of a user torso during a running motion. The sensor output is analyzed to identify an undesirable torso motion.

Truncation variants of BCR-ABL mRNA that produces BCR-ABL proteins with a truncated C-terminus and its role in resistance to treatment with kinase inhibitors is described. Vectors for expressing the truncated gene products are described as well as recombinant cells that express the truncated gene products from cDNA constructs. Also provided are methods compositions and kits for detecting the BCR-ABL truncation variants. Also provided are methods for determining the prognosis of a patient diagnosed as having myeloproliferative disease, and methods for predicting the likelihood for resistance to a treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitor in a patient diagnosed as having myeloproliferative disease. Additionally, methods for screening BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase domain inhibitors which rely on the recombinant cells are also disclosed.

In accordance with some embodiments, the present invention comprises use of a rapid and accurate QM-MSP and cMethDNA methylation marker-based assays to quickly distinguish between cancer and benign/normal tissues in a biological sample from a subject suspected of having cancer. Methods for detecting breast, colon, and lung cancers in biological samples of suspect tissues and fluids are also provided to assist in triaging subjects suspected of having cancer for expedited biopsy and pathology review in low resource settings.