Researchers develop blood tests that could reveal eight cancers

John Hopkins UniversityJohn Hopkins University

Researchers in the United States have developed a blood test that can reveal eight different types of cancer.

 

Researchers at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, hope that taking such tests each year will reveal cancers early, and save lives.

‘Early detection is critical, and the results are very encouraging.

I think this can have enormous significance for the mortality rate for cancer,’ said Dr. Cristian Tomasetti at the Faculty of Medicine at John Hopkins University to the BBC.

Cancer tumours release small traces of altered DNA and proteins that may end up in the bloodstream. The blood test test looks for changes in 16 genes that occur regularly in cancer cases, as well as eight proteins.

The test revealed 70% of cancers in 1,005 patients with existing ovarian, liver, stomach, pancreas, oesophagus, stomach, lung,and breast cancers, wrote the Science Journal.

The researchers are now searching for people who have not shown cancer symptoms before, to participate in new tests. It will be the real proof of how useful such a blood test may be, the researchers pointed out.

‘I’m incredibly excited. This is the Holy Grail – a blood test that can diagnose cancer without all the other methods of scanning or colonoscopy,’ said Gert Attard, head of the Center for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today