Non-invasive blood test brings physicians one step closer to detecting cancer early

Researchers may be closer to detecting cancers before symptoms become apparent in patients, according to a recent article by NPR. Although more research needs to be conducted, the newly developed non-invasive blood test would detect eight common types of cancer, with the potential to open up possibilities in the field of oncology.   

The study, published in Science on Jan. 18, was completed with an overarching hope that the blood test will ultimately lead to a $500 test that can screen for cancer and identify people with the disease when in its earliest stages, according to NPR.  

The experimental blood test, which researchers have dubbed CancerSEEK, pinpoints the following cancers: lung, breast, colon, pancreas, liver, stomach, ovary and esophagus.  

"We selected those eight cancers based on how frequent they are, also [because] a lot of them do not have any screening modality right now," study author Nickolas Papadopoulos, a professor of oncology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, told NPR.  

According to Papadopoulos and his colleagues, the ultimate goal for the test is to detect early signs of cancer before diagnosis, though there's still a long way to go to ensure the tests accuracy in locating the cancer in the body.