The test is developed by US-based company Grail. It looks for chemical changes in parts of the genetic code, cell-free DNA (cfDNA).
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Based on scientists, a simple blood test that can identify more than 50 types of cancer will be rolled out. It can detect cancer before any clinical signs or symptoms with the result also accurate enough.
A blood test detects cancer to be rolled out
NHS England conducted the test that proposed at people at higher risk of the infection. It includes patients age 50 years or even older. The test can identify many types of cancer even the hard to diagnose one. They are head and neck, pancreatic, oesophageal, ovarian, and some blood cancers.
The blood test published in the journal
These scientists’ findings published in the journal Annals of Oncology. They mentioned that the test can recognise cancer before any indications and signs with a very low false-positive rate.
Dr Eric Klein, chairman of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, US, and first author on the paper, released, “Finding cancer ahead, when treatment is more suitable to be successful, is one of the most important possibilities we have to lessen the burden of cancer.”
He showed the data that the multi-cancer detection test could have an intense impact on how cancer is identified and, eventually, on public health, simultaneously with the existing screening test.
How the blood test work
The test is developed by US-based company Grail. It looks for chemical changes in parts of the genetic code, cell-free DNA (cfDNA). The test will find the results from tumours into the bloodstream.
In solid tumours that do not have any screening options, the overall sensitivity (the ability to generate a positive result) of the test was twice (65.6%) as that for solid tumours that do have screening options.
The solid tumours that do not have any screening options such as oesophageal, liver and pancreatic cancers. And then the solid tumours that have screening options are breast, cervical, bowel and prostate cancers.
The sensitivity of the blood test
Meanwhile, the overall sensitivity in blood cancers, such as lymphoma and myeloma, was 55.1%. The test accurately also recognised the tissue in which the cancer was located in the body in 88.7% of cases.
Dr Klein said: “We consider that cancers that dropped more cfDNA into the bloodstream are recognised more clearly. Cancers such as prostate dropped less DNA than other tumours, which is why current screening tests are still necessary for these cancers.”
Meanwhile, the results of the NHS Grail pilot are foreseen by 2023. It starts in autumn 2021 and includes 140,000 participants.
Professor Peter Johnson, national NHS clinical director for Cancer, stated the blood tests like this could help the NHS reach its aggressive target of getting three-quarters of cancers at a first stage when they have the highest opportunity of remedy.
