Novel blood-based early cancer detection: diagnostics in development
1Deputy director and professor of medicine, Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute, Portland, OR; Chief Medical Officer of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute's Cancer Early Detection Advance Research Center (CEDAR).
The American Journal of Managed Care
|November 17, 2020
Summary
New blood tests aim to detect multiple cancers early, potentially reducing the burden of cancer. While promising, these multicancer screening tests require further validation before widespread use.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Medical Diagnostics
- Public Health
Background:
- Cancer incidence is rising, increasing personal and economic burdens.
- Early cancer detection improves outcomes, but current methods like cervical cancer screening can have high false-positive rates.
- Overdiagnosis and overtreatment are concerns with existing screening modalities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the potential of emerging blood-based multicancer screening tests for early cancer detection.
- To highlight the advantages of multicancer screening tests over single-cancer detection methods for population-level screening.
Main Methods:
- Review of emerging blood-based tests for early cancer detection.
- Focus on multicancer screening tests with potential for widespread population use.
- Mention of ongoing clinical trials validating specific assays like CancerSEEK, Galleri, and PanSeer.
Main Results:
- Preliminary findings indicate high specificity for several multicancer screening tests.
- Multicancer screening tests show promise for early cancer detection.
- Ongoing clinical trials are crucial for validating these novel approaches.
Conclusions:
- Blood-based multicancer screening tests represent a promising emerging approach for early cancer detection.
- Widespread screening in the general population may be facilitated by multicancer tests.
- Further clinical validation is essential before these tests can be integrated into routine cancer screening protocols.
