Breakthrough blood tests works by detecting cancer DNA.
By Raif Karerat
Researchers have unveiled a new procedure that may be able to predict whether a woman with breast cancer will suffer a relapse months before new tumors would be detectable on scans.
The experimental blood test works by detecting cancer DNA that circulates into the bloodstream, according to the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The new med-tech isn’t available to the public yet and likely won’t be for years, but researchers are hopeful it could help pave the road for an eventual cure for cancer one day in the future.
“We have shown how a simple blood test has the potential to accurately predict which patients will relapse from breast cancer, much earlier than we can currently,” said study author Nicholas Turner, team leader in molecular oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London.
“Ours in the first study to show that these blood tests could be used to predict relapse,” he added.
Scientists took tumor and blood samples from 55 breast cancer patients with early-onset symptoms. Each of the patients had received chemotherapy and surgery to remove the cancer. The blood test was then administered following surgery and every six months afterward as a follow-up.
Of the 15 women who saw their cancer return, the test correctly predicted the relapse in 12 of them. The test also detected cancer an average of about eight months earlier than the tumors were visibly detectable on conventional scans.
The noninvasive test was able to find metastatic tumors — cancers that had spread — in all parts of the body except the brain. This may mean that the blood-brain barrier prevents DNA in brain tumors from getting into the bloodstream, the authors stated per HealthDay News.
Turner said there are some technical challenges to implementing the technology, according to CTV news, “but digital PCR is relatively cost-effective and the information that it provides could make a real difference to breast cancer patients.”