According to a study published Tuesday, a blood test has been shown to detect five types of cancer years before the diseases can be detected using conventional diagnostic methods.
Developed by a Chinese-American startup, the test found cancers in 91 percent of people who showed no symptoms when the blood sample was collected, but were diagnosed one to four years later with cancer of the stomach, esophagus, or colon. , lung or liver, according to the researchers. reported in Nature’s Communications.
“The immediate approach is to assess the people most at risk, based on family history, age, or other known risk factors,” said co-author Kun Zhang, head of the bioengineering department at the University of California, San Diego and owner of capital at Singlera Genómica, who developed the test.
Early detection of cancers is crucial because survival is significantly improved when the disease can be treated in its early stages and tumors can be removed, either surgically, with medication, or with radiation.
To date, however, there are few effective early detection tests available.
The researchers examined blood samples from more than 600 people enrolled in a 10-year health survey of 120,000 people in China, conducted between 2007 and 2017. The monitoring program included regular blood samples.
For 191 cancer-diagnosed patients, scientists used the new test to analyze blood samples taken up to four years earlier.
They detected cancer separately, with 88 percent accuracy, from 113 patients who had already been diagnosed when the blood samples were collected.
The technique, developed over a decade, is designed to detect asymptomatic diseases based on a biological process called DNA methylation analysis, which detects specific DNA signatures for different types of cancer.
The authors cautioned that more large-scale studies over long periods of time are needed to confirm the test’s potential for early cancer detection.
Half of the 32 authors work for Singlera Genomics, are co-inventors of test-related patents, or own capital in the company.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, accounting for almost 10 million deaths a year.
In 2018, lung cancer caused 1.76 million deaths, colon cancer 862,000, stomach cancer 783,000, liver cancer 782,000, and esophageal cancer 508,000, according to the World Health Organization.
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