What does 'zero data overlap' mean and why is it significant?

Zero data overlap means that in the published clinical validation study, no single cancer sample scored below the 1.5× HL threshold and no single healthy sample scored above it — the two groups were completely separated. This was confirmed with a p-value of 1.6×10⁻²², meaning the probability that this separation occurred by chance is astronomically small. This is significant because every competing multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test uses PCR-based amplification, which introduces large data spread — causing cancer and healthy populations to partially overlap. Overlapping data forces competitors to use probabilistic scoring ('your cancer signal score is X') rather than a clean YES/NO result. The Yenos nanopore platform, which measures single molecules directly without amplification, achieves the clean separation that PCR-based methods cannot.