A ‘Liquid’ Cancer Test?

Researchers in Chicago have revealed that a new ‘liquid’ blood test, which aims to detect cancer mutations, has produced results that are generally similar to the results of painful and invasive tumour biopsies. The news has created quite a stir in the medical world, and has created a new-found hope for an alternative testing method to biopsy procedures which can be incredibly painful and sometimes risky for diagnosing and monitoring cancer patients.

Researchers are hopeful that the new blood tests, now known as ‘liquid biopsies’ within medical circles, will eventually become an alternative to the more traditional and conventional method of biopsies. A tumour biopsy includes extracting a piece of the tumour from a patient by surgery or needle and is linked to a number of potential complications. Having said this, the new liquid biopsy is not without its own problems. Worryingly, the recent study showed that for around 15% of the patients, the test failed to detect any tumour DNA whatsoever.

An expert on lung cancer mutations, Dr Edward Kim, commented that whilst the overall accuracy of the blood tests was “very good”, he was still reluctant to give up on sampling tissue through the conventional biopsy method, which he believes allows for a more thorough analysis than ever possible with a blood sample. Kim said that biopsies are “still the gold standard,” but also agreed that in instances when a tissue biopsy is not possible, or when doing a second or third biopsy is difficult on the patient, he loved the idea of having the blood test as a viable option.