Continuing from where I left off on the previous post, 2018 was definitely an interesting year for the medical research world. While research on the intermittent fasting diets might leave me wanting more substantial findings, I thought that the information from Johns Hopkins on their new CancerSEEK blood test was an exciting development in the cancer research landscape.
Cancer is one of the top subjects world-wide and presents challenges to patients and physicians alike, both emotionally and intellectually. When someone first suspects cancer, it starts them down a road fraught with fear, despair and, often, confusion. They are suddenly dropped into a world of unknown that they never thought they would find themselves in and they are desperate for answers.
One of the first questions they want answered involves an accurate diagnosis – what will they be fighting, specifically? Accurately diagnosing the specific cancer can be a extensive and difficult process. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore recently developed a brand new cancer blood test called CancerSEEK, which could substantially improve both the accuracy and speed at which a cancer diagnosis is reached.
This test, they state, is highly sensitive and able to detect eight types of cancer—breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer—with a moderate to high degree of accuracy.
What were the most intriguing medical studies of 2018? (2018, December 21). Retrieved from https://www.mdlinx.com/otolaryngology/top-medical-news/article/2018/12/21/7552151/
This is huge – a blood test like this could help drastically improve both the efficiency and accuracy of a diagnosis, which then could improve outcomes. We would be able to detect cancer in the earlier stages. So, how does it work?
It starts with a blood sample. When a cancerous tumor forms, it releases mutated DNA and proteins into the blood stream, which can act as markers for the cancer. The blood test seeks out these markers – 16 gene mutations and eight proteins that signal the eight different cancer types, providing a potentially routine screening test for cancer.
“A novelty of our classification method is that it combines the probability of observing various DNA mutations together with the levels of several proteins in order to make the final call,” explains study co-author Cristian Tomasetti, Ph.D., an associate professor of oncology and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.
Whiteman, H. (2018, January 19). Eight cancers could be diagnosed with a single blood test. Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320679.php
Also important to note – the specificity was high as well. That is, the test was accurate – over 99% accurate, only giving seven false positive results in a sample of 812 healthy adults. Now this is significant because false positives lead a patient down a dark path of unnecessary stress, testing, expenses and fear. Not only was the test specific, but in 83% of the test subjects, the blood test was able to pinpoint the location of the cancerous tumor.
With such early, noninvasive detection looking like an option for the near future, cancer research appears to have turned a major corner in 2018! In the next post, I will go through a new cancer destroying injection that the Stanford University School of Medicine has been investigating.