Were the validation samples specifically Stage I and Stage II cancer patients?

Yes — the Yenos validation studies specifically enrolled newly diagnosed Stage I and Stage II cancer patients. This is the critical and most challenging group to detect — at these stages, tumors are small, have not spread to lymph nodes (typically), and shed relatively small amounts of tumor-derived material into circulation. The fact that the Yenos platform achieves 81–97% sensitivity in this most difficult-to-detect group is the scientific foundation of OncuraKit's clinical value. Most competitive MCED tests show substantially higher sensitivity in Stage III and IV disease (when cancer is more advanced and easier to detect) and report their overall sensitivity by averaging across all stages — which obscures the critical Stage I performance gap.