Posted on 03/14/2024 11:04:54 AM PDT by george76
A blood test to screen for colorectal cancer in average-risk individuals without symptoms accurately detected the malignancy in 83% of people confirmed to have the disease, a study released Wednesday showed.
The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers said the blood test's accuracy rate for colorectal cancer is similar to at-home stool tests. It's a promising step, they said, to developing more accessible screening tools for catching the disease early -- when it's easier to treat.
The test would could improve upon low levels of colorectal cancer screening -- a major cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States that results in some 50,000 deaths each year.
That's because in certain populations, such as adults ages 45 to 49, fewer than half of people who are offered screening with a stool-based test or colonoscopy elect to do neither,
...
These findings come from the ECLIPSE study, a multisite clinical trial of nearly 8,000 people ages 45 to 84. Led and funded by Guardant Health Inc., a precision oncology company in Palo Alto, Calif., the trial validated the performance of what is called the Shield test using colonoscopy -- the gold standard of screening -- to confirm the results.
...
The test was most sensitive for colorectal cancers, including early-stage malignancies. It was less sensitive for advanced precancerous lesions, which can progress to cancer over time.
Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer mortality in adults in the United States and is expected to account for 53,010 deaths in 2024, according to the American Cancer Society.
While death rates from colorectal cancer in older adults have declined, rates among those under age 55 have increased by about 1% a year since the mid-2000s. Current guidelines recommend that people at average risk begin regular screening at age 45.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer for people under age 50, Grady said, noting that having a blood-based test available during routine doctor's visits could help more people be screened.
The blood test's sensitivity for colorectal cancer is similar to stool-based tests and lower than that of colonoscopy, which Grady still considers the most accurate screening test for colorectal cancer.
They need to make stuff like this useful without a lab.
I cannot stand tests that require you to send the test in for lab testing, because they ask you for personal information and add you to their spam lists, and suddenly you start getting health and product related junk mail from everyone and their grandmother.
If they really care about letting people catch stuff like this early, make it an OTC test that provides results at home like a pregnancy test or even the covid test
I also agree with you. I don’t put my blood in the mailbox.
I see this as another tool for early detection. But there is still 17% that it may fail to detect.
The government health care always looks for the cheapest way and gets rid of other forms of detection for that reason.
Is this an alternative to having them put the scope up your kazoo?
I hope so sign me up
Although it’s hard to find good data, my calculation done a few years ago showed that a low-risk person had roughly the same chance of a puncture when getting scoped as finding cancer. Assuming not too many false positives, this development definitely (at least to me) will make getting scoped even less desirable.
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