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Some tumors, the more subtle ones, may not give any symptoms, or symptoms that are mostly non-specific. And this is why it is very difficult, even today, to discover them in time, that is, in one early stage. To give hope in the panorama of cancer screening and of early diagnosis is now a simple blood test that has been shown to detect the presence of different types of cancer in people who have not yet developed clear symptoms and, therefore, when the malignancy is still in its infancy. TO tell it was a group of scientists from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who presented the results of the study, called Pathfinderon the occasion of the congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (Esmo) 2022 in Paris.
The Mced test (multi-cancer early detection) in development can detect a disease signal between over 50 neoplasms different and predict where it comes from, where it is in the body. In detail, this signal derives from small sequences of circulating tumor dna (ctDna) in the blood, which differ from the DNA of healthy cells in a particular molecular characteristic, known as methylation. Approximately 6,500 people aged 50 and over, apparently in good health, were involved in the Pathfinder study. However, once subjected to the Mced test, it was found that in the1.4% of the cases (92 people) the test was successful, ie it indicated the presence of ctDna.
From subsequent analyzes, the researchers noted that the cancer diagnosis was confirmed in 38% of cases tested positive. “These results are an important first step in early detection tests because they have shown good detection rate for people who had cancer and excellent specificity rate for those who did not have it “explained the author Deb Schrag. Until now, in fact, previous studies have used the tests only in patients who had already received a diagnosis of cancer. Another interesting result also concerns false positives. “An important finding was that few participants with a false positive screening test required more invasive procedures such as endoscopies and biopsies. “, comments the author. “This should allay concerns that these tests could lead to unnecessary procedures in people who are well.”
Although this was the first study to demonstrate the efficacy and accuracy of the Mced test in people whose disease was unknown, much more research will still be needed to refine them so that we can better distinguish the tumor dna from everything that is in circulation in the blood. “Furthermore, it is vital to understand that the purpose of cancer screening is not to reduce the incidence of cancer, but rather to reduce it mortality for cancer “concludes the expert. “It is premature to draw conclusions about how the Mced test affects mortality that was not measured in the study and requires a long follow-up.”
The direction is correct, but the test is not yet ready for population-wide screening and it is therefore important that you continue with standard procedures. But “Within the next five years we will need more doctors, surgeons and nurses, along with more diagnostic and therapeutic infrastructures, to care for the growing number of people who will be identified by Mced tests”, has explained Fabrice Andréscientific co-chair of Esmo 2022. “We need to involve all stakeholders in deciding new care pathways. We need to agree on who will be tested, when and where they will be done, and anticipate changes, for example in the diagnosis and treatment of people with pancreatic cancer and other cancers that are usually diagnosed at a very late stage ”.
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