Blood test detects cancer and pinpoints location...before symptoms appear

What a Week for Science first the Spinach Leaf Transformed Into Beating Human Heart Tissue and now this.

A blood test for cancer can now show where in the body a tumour is growing, without the need for a painful biopsy.

It is simple enough to be included in routine annual health checks alongside other tests such as for high blood pressure or cholesterol.

The test, called CancerLocator, has been developed by the University of California, and works by hunting for the DNA from tumours which circulates in the blood of cancer patients.

The Team found the DNA patterns for 10 different types of tissue, including from the liver, lung and kidneys. And they used those DNA patterns to analyze Tumours. And they found out that Tumours leave a distinctive ‘footprint’ which a computer can spot.

Non-invasive diagnosis of cancer is important, as it allows the early diagnosis of cancer, and the earlier the cancer is caught, the higher chance a patient has of beating the disease,
-- Professor Jasmine Zhou

We have developed a computer-driven test that can detect cancer, and also identify the type of cancer, from a single blood sample
The technology is in its infancy and requires further validation, but the potential benefits to patients are huge.

The test was checked ten times on blood samples from 29 liver cancer patients, 12 lung cancer patients and five breast cancer patients. It picked up eight out of 10 cancers, and gave a false positive on fewer than one in 100 occasions.

In general, the higher the fraction of tumor DNAs in blood, the more accurate the program was at producing a diagnostic result.

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