A simple-to-take test that tells if you have a tumor lurking, and even where it is in your body, is a lot closer to reality—and may cost only $500.
The new test, developed at Johns Hopkins University, looks for signs of eight common types of cancer. It requires only a blood sample and may prove inexpensive enough for doctors to give during a routine physical.
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The test, detailed [January 18] in the journal Science, could be a major advance for “liquid biopsy” technology, which aims to detect cancer in the blood before a person feels sick or notices a lump.
That’s useful because early-stage cancer that hasn’t spread can often be cured.
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For their test, Hopkins researchers looked at blood from 1,005 people with previously diagnosed ovarian, liver, stomach, pancreatic, esophageal, colorectal, lung, or breast cancer.
Their test searches for a combination of eight cancer proteins as well as 16 cancer-related genetic mutations.
The test was best at finding ovarian cancer, which it detected up to 98 percent of the time. It correctly identified a third of breast cancer cases and about 70 percent of people with pancreatic cancer, which has a particularly grim outlook.
The chance of a false alarm was low: only seven of 812 apparently healthy people turned up positive on the test.
Read full, original post: A Cheap and Easy Blood Test Could Catch Cancer Early
