Chinese scientists have developed a blood test that can detect five different types of cancer, many years earlier than conventional methods of diagnosing cancer.
According to the details, scientists at Fudan University in China have developed a blood test to detect cancers of the stomach, colon, lung, liver and esophagus at least four years ago, with an accurate result rate of 88. About percent.
This blood test is based on a biochemical process called "DNA methylation" that causes certain types of changes in DNA. A decade ago today, it was discovered that methylation causes abnormal changes in DNA in addition to normal changes that could be detected and possibly predicted long before the onset of various diseases. Is.
The research report, published online in the latest issue of the research journal Nature Communications, states that DNA methylation can detect certain types of cancer, even four years before they appear. can go.
The study used a 10-year health survey in China from 2007 to 2017. The study enrolled 120,000 Chinese nationals, while their blood samples were collected and stored over a period of ten years.
Experts from Fudan University tested the old blood samples of more than 600 participants in the study for DNA methylation belonging to different types of cancer.
Of these, 191 were cancer patients who had been diagnosed with cancer shortly after, and had no such symptoms until four years before they were diagnosed.
The experts found that the four-year-old blood samples from these patients contained abnormal DNA methylation, which was associated with certain types of cancer, at a time when they had no apparent signs of cancer.
After being tested on more cancer patients, the technique was found to be 88% to 91% accurate. However, experts who have developed this technique say that it is still necessary to test it for the diagnosis of cancer in several thousand more patients. Only then will this blood test be available for regular use.
It should be noted that the sooner cancer is diagnosed, the better and more effective its treatment can be. Most deaths from cancer are due to the fact that the disease is detected when it has reached its peak.
According to the World Health Organization, there were 1.76 million deaths worldwide from lung cancer in 2018, followed by 862,000 deaths from colon cancer, 783,000 deaths from gastric cancer, 782,000 deaths from liver cancer, and 508,000 deaths from esophageal cancer. Happened
