Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/VcVf5kR2QAA

 

Some good news to brighten your day.  A new cancer screening test from Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Mayo Clinic can detect the presence of more than 50 cancer types including the tough ones to diagnose like ovarian and pancreatic cancer.

 

The test detects cancer DNA in the blood and differentiates it from normal DNA by patterns of methylation.  It can pinpoint the source of the cancer organ-wise in more than 90% of cases.

 

More work must be done since, currently, the test can only detect cancer 43% of the time.  If a cancer is detected, the test is correct 99% of the time.   Very exciting.  Stay tuned.

 

M.C. Liu, G.R. Oxnard, E.A. Klein, etal. Sensitive and specific multi-cancer detection and localization using methylation signatures in cell-free DNA. Annals of Oncology, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.02.011

 

#cancer #ovarian #pancreatic #cancertest #dna