Every year, thousands of Americans undergo routine screening to catch cancer in its early stages, while it’s still treatable. But these routine tests can be painful and invasive, and doctors only regularly screen for five of some of the most common types of cancer.
So for decades, scientists have been working on ways to screen for cancers using a simple blood draw rather than a painful biopsy or invasive test.
Galleri, a new blood test by health care company GRAIL, is one of the most advanced blood biopsy tests. It works by looking for fragments of DNA in a person’s blood that indicate the presence of more than 50 types of cancer.
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These procedures are not without risk, and any screening tool, such as the Galleri test, should reduce the number of unnecessary procedures by not flagging non-cancers as cancers.
That’s why some in the medical community have hesitation about the utility of a blood biopsy capable of detecting only a few cancer cells, as it may accidentally detect a non-cancer as a cancer.
But at the very least, Galleri could provide an early warning system, so doctors could monitor patients and treat them if it becomes necessary.
