Posted on Jul 31, 2025
New blood test detects cancers 3 years before typical diagnosis, study hints
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Blood plasma can harbor DNA changes that could flag cancer years before existing diagnostic tests, an early study hints. The recent study, published May 22 in the journal Cancer Discovery, found traces of free-floating DNA from dead precancerous or cancerous cells in plasma that had been donated three years before a diagnosis.
New blood test detects cancers 3 years before typical diagnosis, study hints
Posted from livescience.com
Cancer
Medical
Science
Research
Posted 4 mo ago
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They found detectable trace indications of cancer in samples from 27% of people who had been diagnosed with cancer within the following six months. The good news was a 0% false positive rate, but the not-so-good news is that there was a 73% false negative rate for this test as a 6-month predictor of cancer.
The headline about detecting cancer "3 years" before diagnosis is much more tenuous. Only six samples were available going back that far and only two of those samples showed any signs of potential cancer. That suggests a less than 9% chance of detection that early.
This may turn out to be a useful avenue of research but it is decades away from being even slightly useful as a diagnostic tool.
The headline about detecting cancer "3 years" before diagnosis is much more tenuous. Only six samples were available going back that far and only two of those samples showed any signs of potential cancer. That suggests a less than 9% chance of detection that early.
This may turn out to be a useful avenue of research but it is decades away from being even slightly useful as a diagnostic tool.
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