How is the blood test able to detect 8 types of cancer
How is the blood test able to detect 8 types of cancer
It is called CancerSEEK and is a blood test capable of detecting 8 types of cancer: cancer of the ovary, pancreas, liver, stomach, esophagus, breast, lung and colorectal cancer.
There is no doubt that everything that involves more information in the diagnosis, especially if it is done early, and improvements in medical treatment, is always a great advance against cancer.
And, on this occasion, we have learned of a phenomenal advance in cancer diagnosis and detection: the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins has been able to develop a blood test capable of detecting 8 most common types of cancer. , helping, in turn, to identify where cancer is located (that is, its location).
What is CancerSEEK?
Under the name of CancerSEEK, researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a unique non-invasive test that is able to simultaneously analyze the concentration of a total of 8 carcinogenic proteins, the most common, which represent more than 60% of deaths for cancer in the United States.
In fact, five of the types of cancer that this blood test includes do not currently have any type of screening test.
But not only is there since it is also able to detect the presence of 16 genetic mutations for cancer in the blood circulating DNA at the time of performing the blood test. These mutations can end up becoming extremely specific markers for cancer.
By maintaining a small mutation panel, it helps in turn to minimize false positive results, and it is very useful to maintain the cost of this type of analysis so that they are as affordable as possible.
What types of cancer is CancerSEEK able to detect?
We are facing a new and revolutionary method of diagnosis that has been designed to detect the following types of cancer:
Ovarian cancer.
Pancreatic cancer.
Liver cancer.
Stomach cancer.
Esophagus cancer.
Breast cancer
Lung cancer.
Colorectal cancer.
The sensitivity of this cancer analysis reaches between 69 and 98 percent, a percentage that depends directly on the type of tumor. On the other hand, the probability that a healthy person has a false positive result would actually be very low.
How does this blood test work?
After taking the blood sample, a combined analysis of both DNA and proteins is performed, to analyze mutations in 16 genes linked to different types of tumors, and to study a total of 10 biomarkers of circulating proteins in the blood.
As we have seen, the blood test is so specific that the possibility of receiving a false positive result is very low.
On the other hand, it stands out especially for being a non-invasive diagnostic method, unlike the biopsies that are currently carried out.