Early cancer detection: new blood test finds disease years before standard diagnosis – ‘We made this discovery by accident’

The test found five types of cancers in 91 per cent of people who were asymptomatic when their blood was collected but were diagnosed one-to-four years later

‘The immediate focus is to test people at higher risk, based on family history, age or other known risk factors,’ says study co-author

2-MIN READ2-MIN

When a tumour kills normal cells, those cells release their DNA into the bloodstream – and that DNA could identify the affected tissue, a team of researchers has discovered. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 11:45pm, 22 Jul 2020Updated: 3:54am, 23 Jul 2020

A blood test has been shown to detect five types of cancer years before the diseases could be spotted using conventional diagnostic methods, according to a study published on Tuesday.

Developed by a Sino-US start-up, the test found cancers in 91 per cent of people who showed no symptoms when the blood sample was collected but were diagnosed one to four years later with stomach, oesophageal, colon, lung or liver cancer, researchers reported in science journal Nature Communications.

“The immediate focus is to test people at higher 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 in the US and an equity holder in Singlera Genomics, which developed the test.

Early detection of cancers is crucial because survival is significantly enhanced when the disease can be treated in its early stages and tumours can be removed, whether surgically, with drugs or with radiation.

To date, however, there are few effective early screening tests available.

Researchers examined blood samples from individuals enrolled in a health survey of 120,000 people in China. Photo: Shutterstock