A new groundbreaking blood test has now been able to detect over 50 types of different cancers is now going to be put to trial in the NHS. This is the world's very first "holy grail" for cancer and will be given 165,000 patients later next year. If this will be successful, it will then be rolled out to over millions of people within the period of the next five years and this could routinely be made available within the next decade, according to an article by PharmaTimes.
'Hold Grail' of Cancer
The story was reported by The Daily Mail and it stated that the test will be made by the United States company known as the Grail. The tests are said to work by looking for the DNA that is released by tumors straight into the blood even before certain patients show symptoms.
According to certain health officials, it is believed that this technology has the power to save a couple of thousands of lives every single year by flagging cancer earlier and drastically improving the overall chances of survival for cancer patients. The chief executive of the known NHS England, Simon Stevens, has hailed this technology as a "game-changer."
Blood test can identify cancer before happening
The test could then be particularly effective, according to him, for certain cancers that are known to be notoriously difficult to diagnose like kidney, ovarian, pancreatic, head, oesophageal, neck, and even some of the blood cancers. He then stated that early detection, particularly for the hard-to-treat conditions, has a huge potential to be able to save many different lives.
The statement then continued saying that this promising blood test could then therefore be a huge game-changer in the whole cancer care and be able to help thousands of more people to be able to get successful treatment. It was stated that this trial confirms that the NHS is at the very forefront of certain cutting-edge technology and treatments.
The plan is a million people by 2025
This particular NHS pilot will be composed of 140,000 healthy people all aged from 50 to 79. They will then be given a blood test annually for the next three years. Anyone found to be positive will then directly be referred towards further investigation in the normal way through the official NHS.
It was said that another 25,000 people that carry possible cancer symptoms will then be offered the test in order to speed up the whole diagnosis. The results of the given studies are expected to roll out later on in 2023, and, if proven successful, will be expanded in order to involve around a million people come 2025.
Research that was published some time earlier this year on the different 1,200 patients that have proven the test to be successful show that the test was able to identify just which body part had cancer and had a high accuracy rating of 96%. At a certain time, the test had only wrongly diagnosed people with cancer for less than 1%.
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo
