'Exciting' blood test spots cancer a year early

[Northerner]

Doctors have spotted cancer coming back up to a year before normal scans in an "exciting" discovery.

The UK team was able to scour the blood for signs of cancer while it was just a tiny cluster of cells invisible to X-ray or CT scans.

It should allow doctors to hit the tumour earlier and increase the chances of a cure.

They also have new ideas for drugs after finding how unstable DNA fuels rampant cancer development.

The research project was on lung cancer, but the processes studied are so fundamental that they should apply across all cancer types.

Lung cancer kills more people than any other type of tumour and the point of the study is to track how it can "evolve" into a killer that spreads through the body.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39658680

 

[trophywench]

Wow! I'm a bit surprised it's still the biggest killer - though thinking about it, my sister had it after he breast cancer which she had removed and radiotherapy after, wasn't aggressive till it came back, both in her boob and everywhere else and killed her. She lived in Oz and got routine mammograms every year although completely signed off from the original - otherwise it wouldn't have been found as quick.

And they wonder why some of us are virtually paranoid about it being found .......

 

[mikeyB]

If the test tells you that a few cancerous cells are present, how do you find where they are?

 

[Copepod]

There are many cell types in lungs. Plus lung can be primary or secondary site. Secondary means that cancer has spread either from a neighbouring site or metastases from a distant site.

 

[trophywench]

Well I suppose Mike the answer to that is they don't know where - however surely that's where chemo comes is?

Copepod - that's what I said! LOL (and her bones and her liver and just about everywhere else in the finish)

 

[grovesy]

Well I suppose Mike the answer to that is they don't know where - however surely that's where chemo comes is?

Copepod - that's what I said! LOL (and her bones and her liver and just about everywhere else in the finish)

My understanding is that Chemotherapy is not suitable for all cancers and that different ones need differnt cocktails of drugs.

 

[trophywench]

My understanding is that Chemotherapy is not suitable for all cancers and that different ones need differnt cocktails of drugs.

True, but you already know what type of cancer cells they are - because otherwise the blood test looking precisely for those type of cells couldn't have found them! Surely if you don't know exactly where these new ones are, chemo is the only way of targetting/killing them.

If the type of cancer you have does NOT respond to any chemo known to man at present - why the hell did you do the blood test!

 

[Amigo]

True, but you already know what type of cancer cells they are - because otherwise the blood test looking precisely for those type of cells couldn't have found them! Surely if you don't know exactly where these new ones are, chemo is the only way of targetting/killing them.

If the type of cancer you have does NOT respond to any chemo known to man at present - why the hell did you do the blood test!

It's important to do blood tests Jenny because bio-markers can be so accurate now that they can plot DNA profiles and chromosomal deletions which indicate whether chemo would be effective.
With my kind of cancer, we have cytogenetic testing which gives a full chromosomal profile. We all live in fear of having what's called a 17p deletion and an unmutated IGVH status because it indicates a more aggressive presentation and resistance to chemotherapy.

It seems with these tests that they're particularly looking at the cells responsible for lung cancer but I sense they're years behind doing anything about it. It's one thing detecting these cells and unstable DNA mutations and another trying to change/kill them. In my disease chemo itself can cause clonal evolution which make the errant DNA change to outsmart the treatment!

DNA research is becoming incredibly sophisticated but I read this research and thought 'in its infancy' at the moment. But it's why cancer research is absolutely vital and particularly for the aggressive and orphan cancers!

 

[trophywench]

Thanks Amigo - very informative post.