Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research in London found traces
of breast cancer eight months before doctors would normally have
noticed.
In the trial, the test found 12 Cancers out of the 15 women who relapsed.
Experts said there was still some way to go before there was a test that could be used in hospitals.
Surgery to remove a tumor is one of the core treatments for Cancer.
However,
a tumour starts from a single cancerous cell. If parts of the tumor
have already spread to another part of the body or the surgeon did not
remove it all then the Cancer can return.
Fifty-five patients who were at high risk of relapse because of the size of the tumor were followed in the study published in Science Translational Medicine. The scientists analyzed the mutated DNA of the tumor and then continued to search the blood for those mutations. Fifteen patients relapsed and the blood test gave advanced warning of 12 of them. The
other three patients all had cancers that had spread to the brain where
the protective blood-brain barrier could have stopped the fragments of
the cancer entering the bloodstream. The test detected cancerous DNA in one patient who has not relapsed. Dr Nick Peel, from Cancer Research UK, said: "Finding less invasive
ways of diagnosing and monitoring cancer is really important and blood
samples have emerged as one possible way of gathering crucial
information about a patient's disease by fishing for fragments of tumor
DNA or rogue cancer cells released into their bloodstream.
"But
there is some way to go before this could be developed into a test that
doctors could use routinely, and doing so is never simple."
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