Blood Test Detects Cancer Early, But Has Some Holdups

The liquid biopsy, which detects cell-free tumor DNA, spotted undiagnosed cancers in some women, but had a greater number of false positives and false negatives.

Ashley Yeager

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A blood test has detected cancer in individuals who had no history or symptoms of cancer. A trial of the test, which is still experimental, shows that it is possible to identify signs of cancer early on, long before people show symptoms of being sick. But the study also identified some people as having cancer when, in fact, there were no tumors at all, and it missed some cases of cancer, researchers reported yesterday (April 28) in Science and at a virtual session of the American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

“This [test] is not at the place where it could be used today,” Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, tells the Associated Press. “It will need many more studies to demonstrate value,” including whether it improves survival, he adds.

The test, which analyzes blood for DNA released by ...

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Meet the Author

Ashley Yeager
Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.
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