A multicancer early detection laboratory blood test was able to detect the genetic material of cancer tumors three years before diagnosis, according to a study published May 22 in Cancer Discovery.
Led by researchers from Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, the study analyzed 52 plasma samples collected as part of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study. Half of the samples represented patients diagnosed with cancer within six months of sample collection, while the other half represented patients who had not been diagnosed with cancer.
Here are three things to know from the study:
- At the time of collection, eight of the 52 patient samples tested positive on a multicancer early detection laboratory test and were diagnosed with cancer within four months of sample collection.
- Researchers were able to find additional blood samples for six of those eight patients, collected between 3.1 and 3.5 years before diagnosis. Of those six, four of the samples contained tumor-derived genetic material.
- “Three years earlier provides time for intervention,” lead study author Yuxuan Wang, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a June 4 news release from Johns Hopkins Medicine. “The tumors are likely to be much less advanced and more likely to be curable.”
Read the full study here.
