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In the late 1950s, dentist and US Navy Capt. Kirk C. Hoerman, then a young man in his 30s, attempted to answer a bold question: Might the saliva of prostate cancer patients have different characteristics from that of healthy people? Could it contain traces of a disease that’s so far away from the mouth? Without wasting more of their own saliva on elaborate discussion, Hoerman and his colleagues from the department of dental research at the Naval Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois, got down to work. They analyzed samples from more than 200 patients and healthy controls, and found...

Researchers are one step closer to making a multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test, that can detect over 50 types of cancer, available to select candidates: those who are age 50 and older, asymptomatic, and considered high risk for the disease.

Researchers in Australia have developed a 10-minute test that can detect the presence of cancer cells anywhere in the human body, according to a newly published study. The test was developed after researchers from the University of Queensland found that cancer forms a unique DNA structure when placed in water. The test works by identifying the presence of that structure, a discovery which could help detect cancer in humans far earlier than current methods, according to the paper published in journal Nature Communications. "Discovering that cancerous DNA molecules formed entirely different 3D nanostructures from normal circulating DNA was a breakthrough...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers developed a single blood test that screens for eight common cancer types and helps identify the location of the cancer, AsiaNet Pakistan reported. The test, called CancerSEEK, is a unique noninvasive, multi-analyte test that simultaneously evaluates levels of eight cancer proteins and the presence of cancer gene mutations from circulating DNA in the blood. The test is aimed at screening for eight common cancer types that account for more than 60 percent of cancer deaths in the US. Five of the cancers covered by the test currently have no screening test. “The...

The new test utilizes microRNA (miRNA), a substance that is secreted from cells into the blood and regulates the movements of genes. Types of miRNA differ between cancer cells and normal cells, and they do not decompose for a certain period of time. The team is composed of researchers from the center, Toray Industries Inc. — which has the testing technology — and other institutions. They succeeded in identifying miRNA specific to 13 kinds of cancers, such as breast, lung, stomach, colorectal, esophagus, liver and pancreatic cancers, from the preserved blood of about 40,000 patients, most of whom were cancer...

A blood test which not only detects cancer but identifies where it is in the body, has been developed by scientists. The breakthrough could allow doctors to diagnose specific cancers much earlier, even before signs such as a lump, begin to show.

Starting Monday, millions of people who have avoided colon cancer screening can get a new home test that's noninvasive and doesn't require the icky preparation most other methods do. The test is the first to look for cancer-related DNA in stool. But deciding whether to get it is a more complex choice than ads for "the breakthrough test ... that's as easy as going to the bathroom" make it seem. On one hand, the test could greatly boost screening for a deadly disease that too few people get checked for now. On the other hand, it could lure people away...

Researchers at Stanford University have designed a new technique that may soon make this a reality. Tumours are called 'solid' or 'liquid' based on where in the body they grow. More than 80 percent of all cancers are caused by solid tumours that grow as a mass of cells in particular organ, tissue or gland. The new technique called CAPP-Seq (cancer personalised profiling by deep sequencing) is sensitive enough to detect just one molecule of tumour DNA in a sea of 10,000 healthy DNA molecules in the blood.

Over 85 percent of all pancreatic cancers are diagnosed late, when someone has less than two percent chance of survival. How could this be? Jack Andraka talks about how he developed a promising early detection test for pancreatic cancer that’s super cheap, effective and non-invasive — all before his 16th birthday. Talk by Jack Andraka

Enlarge Image Tumor signal. A new cancer blood test looks for abnormal chromosomes, such as the rearrangements in these breast cancer cells (different colors on the same chromosome). Credit: Mira Grigorova and Paul Edwards/University of Cambridge People usually find out that they have cancer after developing symptoms or through a screening test such as a mammogram—signs that may appear only after the cancer has grown or spread so much that it can't be cured. But what if you could find out from a simple, highly accurate blood test that you had an incipient tumor? By sequencing the abnormal DNA...

Fifteen-year-old Jack Andraka took home top science fair honours this year for the development of a cancer-testing method found to be 168 times faster, 26,000 times cheaper and 400 times more sensitive than the current gold-medal standard. His work was impressive enough to earn the Maryland high school student a total of $100,500 in grants and prizes at the 2012 Intel Science Fair. Even more impressive is the source he credits for much of his success: Google. "I definitely could not have done this research and project without the use of the internet", Andraka told BBC News in an interview...

A top federal health official said Wednesday that the controversial new guidelines for breast cancer screening do not represent government policy, as the Obama administration sought to keep the debate over mammograms from undermining the prospects for health-care reform. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a written statement, said the new guidelines had "caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country," and she stressed that they were issued by "an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who . . . do not set federal policy and . . ....