Cancer detection through a simple blood test is closer

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deteccion de cancer con analisis de sangre 1000x600.jpg
deteccion de cancer con analisis de sangre 1000x600.jpg

These days the congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) is being held in Paris and has highlighted a research that is presented as a pioneer of early diagnosis in the detection of up to 50 cancers.

Cancer research does not stop and so it should be for what is considered the leading cause of death in the developed world. Until a “cure” is discovered, improvement in treatment and detection occupies most of the research. The one carried out by oncologists from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, bases its results on a simple blood test that detects circulating tumor DNA even when there are no symptoms of the disease.

The test was performed on 6,621 people over 50 years of age (with no previous cancer diagnosis and no symptoms) obtaining negative results in 98.6 of samples. An “excellent rate”, the scientists point out, which would demonstrate the ability of the test to rule out tumors. Of the 1.4% of positive results, only 38% were subsequently confirmed by standard methods.

It is clear that there is still a lack of research in this field and this may come with the improvement of the test itself to avoid false positives, but at the same time the high degree of detection of patients free of the disease and what this type of test can mean stands out especially with some cancers such as pancreas, small intestine or stomach, for which there are still no mass screening methods in the population.

Early detection is key in cancers and in some of them they are the ones that separate life from death. Hence the importance of improving this type of test that looks for the presence of tumor DNA in the bloodstream. This method, non-invasive and very simple to perform by health systems on large portions of the population, they say will open a new era to rule out the presence of the disease and improve cancer mortality.

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And the advances in treatments?

Although the previous method is important to improve detection, it is obvious that it does not prevent incidence and right now tens of millions of patients and others still undiagnosed have to be treated. The most interesting short-term treatments continue to be those that seek to improve chemical therapies “cutting” the DNA of cancer cellsinhibiting tumor growth and leaving healthy cells safe, the great workhorse in chemotherapy treatments.

There has already been encouraging research with mice focused on two of the deadliest cancers out there. Metastatic ovarian cancer and the super aggressive glioblastoma brain cancer, one of the cancers with the lowest survival rate once detected. The method is based on CRISPR genome-editing technology and uses a protein that acts like scissors and a small guide RNA that tells it where to act.

cancer detection

The advantage is enormous since there are no secondary effects or what is the same, keeps healthy cells safe. In addition, it prevents cancer cells from reactivating. That’s where research goes to treat the disease of our time.