Blood test could speed up cancer treatment

A new blood test by GPs for patients with early signs of cancer could speed up treatment and cut NHS wait times, research suggests. Three-quarters of people who had a positive result had cancer, data published this week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago shows. Overall, two-thirds who had cancer tested positive. Scientists said despite one in three cases not being flagged up by the test, the data shows promise in speeding up cancer triage.

Oxford study ‘is first step in finding a new way to identify disease as quickly as possible’, says NHS chief

A BLOOD test given by GPs to patients with early signs of cancer could speed up treatment and cut NHS waiting times, research suggests.

Oncologists from the University of Oxford trialled the Galleri blood test, made by the US firm Grail, in the NHS and recruited more than 5,000 people for the study.

Three quarters of the people who have a positive result from the blood test had cancer, data published this week at the American Society of Clinical

Oncology annual conference in Chicago show. Overall, two-thirds of people who had cancer received a positive test result, giving a sensitivity rate of 66.3 per cent. Scientists said that despite one in three cancer cases not being flagged up by the test, the data show promise in speeding up cancer triage.

A specificity rate of 98.4 per cent – a measure of how good the test is at ruling out cancer as a cause of symptoms – shows the test holds great promise for being able to rule out when a person does not have cancer.

Of the 5,461 people in the study, 368 people went on to be diagnosed with cancer. The test gave a positive result for 323 people, and 244 of these were found to have cancer. The patients were referred to hospital for tests by their GP after expressing vague initial symptoms such as stomach pain and weight loss.

Dr Brian Nicholson, associate profes

‘This test could help us to catch more cancers at an earlier stage and help save thousands of lives’

sor at the Nuffield department of pri- mary care health sciences at Oxford, who co-led the study, said there was a need for tools that speed up diagnosis and help patients avoid invasive and painful investigations.

“The high overall specificity, positive predictive value, and accuracy of the cancer signal detected indicate that a positive test could be used to confirm that symptomatic patients should be evaluated for cancer before pursuing other diagnoses,” he said.

The results of the study are a boost for the Grail test, which is also being used by the NHS to see if it is effective at spotting cancer in the blood of asymptomatic people.

It works by looking for signs of cellfree DNA in the bloodstream which is a specific biosignature of patients who have a tumour somewhere in the body that is shedding unique, and potentially identifiable, cancerous DNA. Scientists are hopeful that the test can not only tell if a person has cancer but could also shed light on where in the body a tumour is growing, further expediting the treatment process.

Prof Peter Johnson, NHS national director for cancer, said: “This study is the first step in testing a way to identify cancer as quickly as possible, being pioneered by the NHS – earlier detection of cancer is vital and this test could help us to catch more cancers at an earlier stage and help save thousands of lives.

Prof Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, said the study “shows we are edging towards an era when blood testing for cancer could really impact early diagnosis and significantly improve clinical outcome”.

The results are to be published in the journal Lancet Oncology.