🩸 Promising: Blood test can detect more than 50 cancer types – enables earlier treatment

• A blood test shows ability to identify over 50 different cancer types and can speed up diagnosis.
• More than half of the cancer forms were detected in early stages where treatment is more effective.
• Three-quarters of the detected cancer types currently lack screening programs.

The study included 25,000 participants

A study in North America shows that a blood test can identify more than 50 different types of cancer. The test, called Galleri and developed by American pharmaceutical company Grail, can detect fragments of cancer DNA that have broken off from a tumor and are circulating in the blood.

The study followed 25,000 adults from the US and Canada over one year. Nearly one in 100 received a positive result. For 62 percent of these cases, cancer was later confirmed.

Dr Nima Nabavizadeh, associate professor of radiation medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and lead researcher for the study, says the data shows that the test can change how they work with cancer screening. He explains that it can help detect many types of cancer earlier, when the chance of successful treatment or cure is greatest.

High accuracy in the test

The test correctly ruled out cancer in over 99 percent of those who tested negative. When combined with breast, bowel, lung and cervical cancer screening, the number of detected cancer cases increased sevenfold overall.

Three-quarters of the detected cancer forms were those that currently have no screening program, such as ovarian, liver, stomach, bladder and pancreatic cancer. More than half of the cancer forms were detected at an early stage.

The blood test correctly identified where the cancer originated in nine out of ten cases.

Trial ongoing in the United Kingdom

NHS in England is currently conducting a three-year study with 140,000 patients. The results will be published next year. If the results prove successful, NHS has previously said they would extend the tests to an additional one million people.

Sir Harpal Kumar, president of biopharma at Grail, calls the results compelling. He says that the vast majority of people who die from cancer do so because their cancer is detected too late. Many cancers are found when they are already very advanced. The goal is to shift to earlier detection, when there is opportunity to use treatments that are more effective and can potentially lead to cure.

Results from the study will be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology congress in Berlin. The full details have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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