Do supertests that detect cancer years in advance really work?
Within a month of each other, two British research centres have identified a series of proteins in the blood that signal early cancer diagnosis
3' min read
3' min read
Within a month of each other, two British research centres - the recently opened Early Cancer Institute at the University of Cambridge and Cancer Research UK at Oxford Population Health - have identified a series of proteins in the blood that could warn of a cancer diagnosis years in advance. Both studies were published in Nature Communications.
The first, carried out by researchers at the Early Cancer Institute - which has just received £11 million from an anonymous donor - is focusing on finding tests to tackle cancers before they produce symptoms. The research will exploit recent findings that have shown that many people develop precancerous conditions that linger for long periods.
"The latency for cancer development can go on for years, sometimes for a decade or two, before the condition suddenly manifests itself in patients," said Rebecca Fitzgerald, director of the Institute. "We therefore need a different approach, one that can detect cancer risk early using tests that can be deployed on a large scale.
An example of this is the 'cytosponge' (a sponge tied to a thread) that was developed by Fitzgerald and his team. It is swallowed like a pill, expands in the stomach and is then pulled up the oesophagus, collecting cells along the way. If the cells contain a protein called TFF3 - found only in precancerous cells - the patient is at risk of oesophageal cancer and must be monitored.
Another approach taken by the institute - to be renamed the Li Ka-shing Early Cancer Institute in honour of the Hong Kong philanthropist who supported other cancer research in Cambridge - focuses on blood samples collected from women as part of previous ovarian cancer screenings and stored in special warehouses.
