Patient recruitment for the intervention studies, which are going on now for one year, appeared slower than anticipiated. So far the milestone of 75 patients has not been achieved and only 50 patients were included. Therefore the recruitement area was expanded by increasing the number of participating hospitals. Since more efforts are needed, the project expenses go up and additional funding by at least 100 kEuro for the Wageningen centre must be found. Several attempts have been made already, but without success. The team is now exploring the possibility to find sponsors in industry. The work regarding measurement of faecal markers, markers of inflammation, development of markers for colorectal cancer risk using DNA chip technogy, including training of staff, showed a good progression with excellent cooperaion among centers. A great deal of progress has been made by TNO, Netherlands, and Friedrich Schiller University, Germany, in development of novel methods for measuring DNAdamage in biopsy cells by COMET analysis. For the first time part of the procedure has been undertaken in one lab and then samples transferred to another for analysis. This has been very succesfull.
Array analysis is still under discussion as to best approach with members of the NuGO team. Results on fatty acid analysis so far will be used for new power calculations. These calculations are required to make an estimation of the minimum number of patients to be included in the intervention. It is possible that the changes in fatty acid composition brought about by the intervention are stronger than anticipated before which means that the total number of patients necessary to be included in the intervention may appear less than calculated before. Regarding measurement of in-vitro digestibility of fish protein, fish fatty acids and formation of peptides during digestion, there was delay in the execution of the experiments as a consequence of capacity problems at TNO. The pillar coordinator was informed in December 2005 that these capacity problems are now solved by having a post doc included in the TNO team such that the arrearage will be eliminated soon.
