The National Health Service of England announced that it starts a full-scale testing of the new method of early diagnosis of more than 50 varieties of cancer. It is expected that with the help of blood test it will be possible to establish the presence of the disease before the first symptoms appear. It is reported by the Russian BBC service.
In a study that will last two years, 140 thousand volunteers aged 50 to 77 years will take part. They will take blood tests, will then invite repeated analyzes in a year and two years later. The test will be applied only to half of the initially assembled blood samples – the second half will be the control group to test the effectiveness of the test.
“The test may make a revolution in the diagnosis of cancer,” said the head of the program, Professor Peter Sasilation to London. – We start working with enthusiasm. “
Currently, cancer is diagnosed by passing the tissue particle to biochemical research (biopsy), which no one does without symptoms.
The new method is based on the detection of early changes in the structure of the DNA of blood cells. It was created by the GRAIL biotechnology startup, founded in 2015 in San Francisco specifically to develop ways of early diagnosis of cancer. I recently bought it for $ 1.7 billion American pharmaceutical company ILLUMINA INC.
The test itself is known as Galleri. In the US, it is offered for patients with increased risk of cancer, in particular for those older than 50 years. The Federal Department of Food and Drugs has not yet certified it, so most of the insurance companies does not cover its value.
“Search for cancer diagnostics technologies using blood tests is carried out worldwide, but so far he was at the research stage. Now we are proceeding with the detailed test, the most large-scale in history. The new method is especially promising for the diagnosis of those species. Cancer, which long does not show explicit signs and symptoms, “said BBC Director for Oncology National Health Services Calley Palmer.