New research suggests a blood test could be used to detect breast cancer, track its progression, and even predict the risk of its return following treatment.
The groundbreaking test would look at DNA released into the bloodstream by cancer cells using specialized DNA-reading technology, Cancer Research U.K. reported. Researchers demonstrated the method's efficiency by using it to successfully track key genetic faults in circulating tumor DNA in blood samples.
"This important study suggests that looking for tumor DNA in a patient's blood after they've been treated for early stage breast cancer could help monitor them, and even make predictions about whether their disease may come back," said professor Jacqui Shaw, an expert in circulating [tumor] DNA from Cancer Research U.K. "And it may be possible to do this before [tumors] become visible on conventional scans. 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."
To test the potential detection method, the researchers looked at 55 breast cancer patients who were in the early stages of the disease and had underwent chemotherapy followed by surgery six months earlier. The analysis revealed women who tested positive for circulating tumor DNA were 12 times more likely to have breast cancer recurrence than those who tested negative. The technique proved to have the ability to predict a return of breast cancer in patients up to eight months before noticeable symptoms arose. The findings back up past research that suggested tumor DNA could be used to monitor breast cancer through the blood stream.
"Finding less invasive ways of diagnosing and monitoring cancer is really important. And fishing for fragments of tumour DNA, or even rogue cancer cells, released into the bloodstream has emerged as a hugely promising way to do this," Shaw said.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
