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RE: Circulating Tumor DNA: A non-invasive way to detect cancer early
For one, tumors usually grow adjacent to blood vessels because they need the nutrients from blood to maintain a high rate of growth.
When I read this I was like "smart!" They also do angiogenesis right?
It wasn’t a perfect method as cancer won’t always release DNA into the blood
If a cancer doesn't do that, that means it's local? Or are there other ways for it to metastasize? I think via lymph nodes?
Overall a great idea for early detection. Or at least that's how I imagined it at first: blood tests getting done on patients who haven't been diagnosed with cancer. But it seems this is used on patients who have been treated for cancer, in order to detect relapse. Hopefully in the future it'll just be part of routine blood exams?
I think its too early for this to be a routine blood test, but in the future we might see it become the norm. It a tumor doesn't release DNA that might mean its local or benign, but cancer is so varied it could mean a lot of things. I think time and better sequencing tech will shed a lot of light on this area.