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DNA-Based Test Can Spot Cancer Recurrence a Year Before Conventional Scans (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the medical-breakthrough dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A revolutionary blood test has been shown to diagnose the recurrence of cancer up to a year in advance of conventional scans in a major lung cancer trial. The test, known as a liquid biopsy, could buy crucial time for doctors by indicating that cancer is growing in the body when tumors are not yet detectable on CT scans and long before the patient becomes aware of physical symptoms. It works by detecting free-floating mutated DNA, released into the bloodstream by dying cancer cells. In the trial of 100 lung cancer patients, scientists saw precipitous rises in tumor DNA in the blood of patients who would go on to relapse months, or even a year, later. In the latest trial, reported in the journal Nature, 100 patients with non-small cell lung cancer were followed from diagnosis through surgery and chemotherapy, having blood tests every six to eight weeks. By analyzing the patchwork of genetic faults in cells across each tumor, scientists created personalized genomic templates for each patient. This was then compared to the DNA floating in their blood, to assess whether a fraction of it matched that seen in their tumor.

27 comments

  1. Re: Fuck you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you AC!

    You wasted a perfectly good first post opportunity!

  2. Re: Fuck you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you Conventional Scans!

  3. Re:Fuck you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck Cancer!

  4. Re: Fuck you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nah buddy, chill. Cancer will be your bitch one day, just... let it happen.

  5. Not buying it. by MakersDirector · · Score: 0, Funny

    First, We as humans recognized the similarity to the save game mechanism of video games and DNA a long time ago.

    We decoded DNA. Even the stuff you refer to as 'Junk DNA', and discovered some things that we as humans weren't too happy about. So. We altered things. We cured cancer. We learned of the origin of disease and how modern medicine had derailed. We learned who it was serving, why, and rewired things as we saw fit.

    So when you tell us that what you gleaned from DNA and how it in a sense lets you predict the future.

    We know. We've known for a long time now.

    Free will and choice necessitated changing this.

    No more tests telling us who we are and arent and what we can and can't be.

    You can take your 'bad karma' which you'll invariably try to send my way. Negative energy, right, for not being supportive of your system and ways?

    We dont want it anymore.

    As for cancer.

    We found the cure.

    You're going to have to quit dismissing stuff as junk, as fiction, as hallucinations in order to understand what that cure is.

    1. Re:Not buying it. by Jzanu · · Score: 1

      You are just another wacko, so stop with the snake-oil mysticism. Real people need scientifically proven medical treatment that keeps them from dying a grisly and preventable death. Your "viewpoint" dooms people to early death full of unnecessary pain and suffering.

    2. Re: Not buying it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please enlighten me on "the cure". I am late stage 3 going through chemo as we speak. Where is this cure that I can have. If it doesn't exist, then you are the cruelest of people, giving hope where it doesn't exist.

    3. Re: Not buying it. by MakersDirector · · Score: 0

      Biology breaks down to chemicals, chemicals break down to atoms, and atoms break down to subatomic particles and energy.

      When you're doing chemotherapy, chemotherapy treats the cancer at a chemical level. Hence the term CHEMO. Radiation therapy is treating the molecular level. But underlying this all is energy. Now it's a proven fact that stress - psychologically - manifests and exacerbates real world diseases such as high blood pressure, ulcers, and the like.

      So let's just theorize for a moment that cancer - in much the same was as stress related ailments, doesn't always 'react' well to chemical and biological ailments because this isn't the origin of the disease. There's obvious hints and clues there's something else at work.

      So let's take a look at the breakdown of biology to atoms to the subatomic - which is where any good researcher trying to develop a cure to cancer is invited to question - is it in the energy? And if so, what is going on with this relationship between the subatomic realm and the atomic which is creating diseases such as cancer?

      In 2003 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer, as a wonderfully funny doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona put it succinctly when he pulled out a book and pointed to a picture of the brain and said "HERE IS YOUR PROBLEM". I actually had to laugh.

      I never really took it seriously. I didn't do chemotherapy or radiation therapies of any kind because I didn't agree with destructive therapies, period, I simply wasn't interested in recurrence and having that on my mind the rest of my life. But what I did do was I DOVE into holistic research and went AROUND the world looking for cures,

      Keep in mind that the previous poster, who very very quickly insults first and throws derogatory references is a 'part' of the apparatus which perpetuates consumer based medicine. And trust me - I heard it all as I refused treatment, I even had my family stand up against me and try to claim I was unfit for making my own decisions as the cancer was influencing my decisions.

      They were absolutely right. In a consumer based system, you are never really cured because you are a source of revenue, and your pain and suffering is meaningless because this entropically based system ultimately serves to take your life. Now it's VERY important that you as a stage 3 understand this 'system' isn't bad nor good. It's a reflection of nature herself. But nature can be extremely unkind, as can this 'system'. Torturously so, which everyone deserves a better quality of life than that - and this abusive system which sucks the life outta you is a predictable treatment plan for anyone with major diseases and ailments without cures such as cancer.

      I'm going to get into detail because - well you asked for it. Beware - technical detail.....

      The body's a living organism comprised of trillions of cells. These cells form communities, these communities serve purposes, and in a mostly predictable fashion, documented in physiology books, anatomy books, and more - this cohesive unit referred to as a human body is a collection of communities.

      These communities TALK to eachother, in ways that are NOT that much different than real life cities. Chemicals are shipped between communities aka organs, energy is transferred all the time in the form of glucose, and like ANY community, there stands the very real potential that something within this organism may not do as it's programmed to do. In general, This is a sign of potentially intelligent life, as far fetched as this sounds, and the lack of predictable and planned growth should have been your first clue.

      Now it's absolutely preferred that intelligent life of any shape and size doesn't take residence within your body, right? Your body is yours.

      So what cancer does is takes a hammer to that 'bad seed' and squashes it like a bug.

      But sometimes. That life form just doesn't get the hint. And eventually. It becomes a battle for your own life.

      Which is why I started checking into science fiction ideas

  6. Raquel Welch already did this by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    free-floating in 1966

  7. so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ir will cost too much to use.

    1. Re:so what by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Ir will cost too much to use.

      This discovery took place at Cambridge, as in "Oxford and..." That means that our role will not be to make it cost too much, but to sneer "Theranos! Theranos!" until we are assured that none of our venture capitalists will consider funding it.

  8. age by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    If I just put a blood sample in the freezer at home would it act as a usable baseline if I needed a test in the future ? Or does it deteriorate too quickly. I see the cold case files where they do dna tests on evidence from 20 years ago, surely that's just held on a shelf in a warehouse.

    --
    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:age by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think if you put some hair in your freezer it would still be usable for a DNA test.

    2. Re:age by TimothyHollins · · Score: 1

      Putting DNA directly into the freezer is not recommended, but you can "freeze" it with formalin and then embed it in paraffin for longterm storage (FFPE). This works fine for DNA, and is used all over the world for biobanking.

      I'd recommend taking a biopsy though, from a stable region (not sun-drenched skin).

  9. Re: These ancestry and DNA tests... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By "no such thing," I meant privacy.

  10. Tumor Genome Similarity? by mentil · · Score: 1

    It sounds like they sequence the genome of your known tumors, and then search for similarity to that genome in your blood. I'm wondering if, by sequencing your non-mutated genome, and then searching for dissimilar genomes in the blood (screening out pathogens etc.), cancer could be diagnosed by blood in persons who hadn't yet been diagnosed with cancer.
    I also wonder how the effectiveness of this compares to the 'lab on chip' solutions that use blood samples to diagnose cancer.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Tumor Genome Similarity? by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      They have found a way to take a known sample of one thing (a tumor), and search specifically for that one thing, with notable success. "Notable success" being defined as low-ish probabilities of false-positives and misses.

      What you are describing seems to be much, much harder, specifically searching for "all other things". I would expect the rate of false-positives and misses to be very much larger. Also, the idea sounds tantamount to the common "white-blood-cell count" that is regularly done with blood tests.

      IANAD, by the way.

  11. is that useful? by ooloorie · · Score: 1

    In the trial of 100 lung cancer patients, scientists saw precipitous rises in tumor DNA in the blood of patients who would go on to relapse months, or even a year, later. In the latest trial

    I suppose if the DNA test comes back negative, you don't have to X-ray or you can scrutinize the X-ray more carefully. But, still, it doesn't seem all that useful.

    1. Re:is that useful? by mentil · · Score: 2

      If you take a DNA test and it comes back negative, you may want to speak to a xenobiologist.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  12. Rest assured by forty-2 · · Score: 1

    this will be used to help determine the best course of treatment for you, after they calculated your new insurance premium

    --
    never drink kool-aid from a big vat
    1. Re:Rest assured by Miser · · Score: 1

      Don't have any mod points, wish I did. You're damn straight this will be abused.

      This is also why I don't participate in those genealogy studies that want your DNA sample. F that. Once that data is out of your custody you have no idea what they do with it, agreements be damned.

  13. Quick, run this test on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the White House!!!

  14. Not New by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not new. See http://www.lifeextension.com/Magazine/2010/CE/Circulating-Tumor-Cell-Assays/Page-01

  15. WOAW, something impressive for a change ... by KingBenny · · Score: 1

    soon available in a hospital near you, ALAS b/c it needs to be profitable by then your uncle who's Bob, is dead ...

    --
    Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?