ISTOCK.COM/NANOSome pregnant mothers whose blood is being screened for fetal chromosomal abnormalities are instead finding out that they, themselves, have cancer. That’s because some tumors shed fragments of DNA, vesicles, or even whole cells into a patient’s bloodstream.
“In the majority of these tumors, even low grade ones, we found we could use an individual’s blood as a surrogate for studying tumor biology,” cytogeneticist Joris Vermeesch of the KU Leuven Center for Human Genetics in Belgium told The Scientist.
Now, several companies are working to develop tests that screen for circulating tumor DNA, exosomes, and cells. At this point, these assays are only useful for certain types of cancer, but the hope is that these tests can help clinicians catch the disease early and inform treatment decisions.
“Detecting the presence of occult disease that hasn’t yet shown up in clinical or radiologic grounds so we can implement therapies which could be curative [if begun early enough],” said Bert Vogelstein of the Johns Hopkins ...
