Major advancement in the fight against cancer. A new blood test can detect the disease up to four years before the first symptoms appear. Chinese researchers developed the revolutionary test, which was accurate 95 percent of the time.
The test, called PanSeer, is not the first to detect cancer through the blood. It is the first time that tumors can be detected at such an early stage. “We showed that five types of cancer can be diagnosed with a DNA methyl group test, up to four years before diagnosis,” write the scientists in the journal Nature Communications.
DNA
The test checks certain pieces of DNA in blood plasma for methyl groups, which often arise in tumors. The developed technique can detect very low levels of such DNA. With the blood test you cannot predict cancer, the scientists emphasize, but you can detect cancer cells that do not cause complaints for a long time.
95% accurate
The test was performed on nearly two hundred people who were diagnosed with stomach, colon, liver, lung, or esophageal cancer within four years of the blood test. In 95 percent of cases, the test managed to detect the cancer. People who had been cancer-free for years also participated in the test, which was also predominantly correct for them.
Although the group studied was relatively small, scientists are positive about the study. “This is a great study, again confirming that such tests work,” says cancer researcher Dr. Eric Klein of the Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute, for example. “The test can form the basis for new screening tests that can detect cancer early.”
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