Blood test can spot DNA from eight different types of cancer
A simple blood test can detect eight different types of cancer. It does this by detecting the various sizes of tumour DNA fragments that flow through the body.
At the moment, most cancer screening tools are limited to specific areas of the body – for example, mammograms for spotting breast cancer and faecal tests for detecting bowel cancer. Whole-body MRI and CT scans can identify tumours throughout the body, but only once they have grown large enough to see.
As a result, many research groups are working on developing blood tests that can detect multiple different cancer types while they are still in early, treatable stages. A popular approach is to genetically sequence blood to see if it contains any tell-tale tumour DNA markers. But this is like looking for needles in a haystack because of the large volume of non-cancerous DNA that also circulates in the blood.
