NANJING - Chinese researchers have developed a new and efficient fluorescent method to simultaneously detect a variety of malignant tumor markers.

The new method was developed by a research team with the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It can detect two kinds of common tumor markers -- alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) -- conveniently, stably and sensitively, which is of great significance for the early detection and diagnosis of cancer, according to Miao Peng, the head of the team.

The levels of CEA and AFP in the serum are found to be related to the occurrence of many types of cancers. Simultaneous detection of multiplex targets plays an important role in the diagnosis of carcinoma.

The new method is simple to operate, less costly and convenient and has a great potential in biomedical research and clinical diagnosis, according to Miao.

A paper on the finding has been published in Nanoscale, a leading British journal on chemistry.