# HrC test (Epigeneres)

Source: https://onco.cc/drugs/hrc-test/  
OnCo record `hrc-test` (Test). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A Mumbai company's blood test that scores one embryonic gene and claims to detect and stage any cancer; the published support is the company's own description and case studies, without accuracy figures.

## Summary

Epigeneres Biotech, Mumbai, describes the HrC test (Tripathi et al., Stem Cell Reviews and Reports 2021) as a numerical scale from non-cancer (0 to 2) through inflammation, high risk and stages I to IV, validated in 500 people with and 500 without cancer, and claims it detects and classifies solid tumours, blood cancers and sarcomas by stage; the abstract reports no sensitivity or specificity. A later company review (Bhartiya et al., Stem Cells 2023) presents it with an All Organ Biopsy test as able to confirm the absence of cancer. No independent study, regulatory status, availability or price was found.

## Fields

- Kind: Test
- Status: emerging
- Last checked: 2026-11-03
- Tags: test; mced; evidence:insufficient
- Brand: HrC
- Modality: Cancer blood test (OCT-4A expression in peripheral blood)
- Mechanism: Measures expression of OCT-4A, an embryonic stem cell gene, in peripheral blood and converts the fold change into a score the developer links to cancer and its stage; it does not indicate an organ.

## Notes

- Evidence grade insufficient for the claim that taking this test reduces late-stage diagnosis or cancer deaths: no randomised trial of it has reported either outcome, and its published performance comes from case-control or single-arm studies. The only randomised result for any multi-cancer test, NHS-Galleri, did not show fewer stage III or IV cancers.
- No sensitivity or specificity has been published; the claim that one marker detects and stages every cancer rests on the developer's own reports.
- What a result means: a positive result is a reason for further tests, not a diagnosis; a negative result does not rule cancer out and does not replace the screening tests that have been shown to work (bowel, breast, cervical and, where eligible, lung screening).

## Sources

- Tripathi et al., Stem Cell Reviews and Reports 2021: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12015-021-10167-1
- Bhartiya et al., Stem Cells 2023: https://doi.org/10.1093/stmcls/sxad015

## Connected records

- technologies: [Liquid biopsy (ctDNA)](https://onco.cc/technologies/liquid-biopsy/), [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/)
- companies: [Epigeneres Biotech](https://onco.cc/companies/epigeneres/)
- key papers: [Quest for Pan-Cancer Diagnosis/Prognosis Ends with HrC Test Measuring Oct4A in Peripheral Blood](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-hrc-test-oct4a-stem-cell-rev-2021/)

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