Can cancer be detected in blood test? Actually, yes. There’s a study that suggests that this test can detect it precisely where the cancer is in the body.
A universal blood test for any type of cancer would be a dream. A new study suggests that this concept may soon become a reality. An investigation by the University of California, San Diego, has found a new way to detect cancer in the blood. It could both alert doctors to the presence of cancer, and tell them where in the body the tumor is.
The new study describes the discovery of a new clue found in the blood. Although the discovery is preliminary, the team hopes to advance after the clinical stage. From there, they they can test it. If the test proceeds as expected, it could make the diagnosis of cancer faster and more effective.
“We made this discovery by accident,” said the main researcher. “We were seeing signals from other cells and we realized that if we integrate both sets of signals, we could actually determine the presence or absence of a tumor, and where the tumor is growing.”
Biomarkers are molecules that indicate normal or abnormal processes in your body. In fact, doctors use them to label everything from heart disease to multiple sclerosis. In the case of cancer, biological markers are often proteins that tumors or gene mutations, rearrangements, or other genetic abnormalities emit that indicate the presence of cancer.
How can cancer be detected in blood test?
In the new study, the team put together in a database the different patterns of genes that indicate the presence of normal tissues in 10 different parts of the body. These parts are the liver, intestine, colon, lung, brain, kidneys, pancreas, spleen, stomach and blood. By combining this information with samples from a tumor and blood from a cancer patient, this team of researchers created a database genetic biomarkers that are cancer-specific. Additionally, using this database they hope to be able to examine the blood of the patients and say where in the body the cancer is.
The identification of biomarkers for cancer is an important part of cancer research. Also, it is a topic of great interest to scientists today. For example, in a study published earlier this month, scientists announced the discovery of two proteins that could help make the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer faster and more accurate.
These proteins, present in the blood, increase the predictive ability of biomarker tests that doctors use to detect pancreatic cancer. Since doctors often diagnose pancreatic cancer too late for surgery to be an option, using these new biomarkers could potentially save many lives.
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