New blood test can detect most common types of cancer

- Scientists have made a breakthrough in the development of a blood test that can detect eight types of cancer. For five of those types of cancer there is no test yet. Because of this blood test, cancer can be detected a year earlier than current scans.

The blood test looks at the DNA in the blood and cancer-related proteins. For example, sixteen genes are examined that often mutate in various types of cancer. We also look at eight protein biomarkers that are subject to considerable change in relation to the location of the body where the cancer is located.

The new test will detect the eight most common cancers in about seventy percent of the patients tested. The research is published in the scientific journal Science.

'The use of a combination of selected biomarkings can drastically change the way we test for cancer,' says Professor Oncology Nickolas Papadopoulos of Johns Hopkings University about the investigation against The Guardian.

About a thousand patients have been tested. Cancer in the womb was the easiest to detect, followed by cancer in the liver, stomach cancer, cancer in the pancreas, esophageal cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer and breast cancer

Although not every cancer is detected, there are many types of cancer that would otherwise never be noticed. Cancer in the ovaries, liver, stomach, pancreas and esophagus are currently un detectable.

A test to detect all types of cancer, however, seems far away. 'Many promising cancer treatments can only help a limited group of cancer patients. If we want to take major steps in the treatment of cancer in the past, we must be realistic that no test will detect all types of cancer, 'says Bert Vogelstein, professor of oncology at John Hopkings University.

The team behind the test, called CancerSEEK, predicts that the blood test will ultimately cost less than $ 500, nearly 408 euros. The test is not yet ready for use by the general public. More research is needed for this.