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The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a blood test to be used for colorectal cancer screening among average-risk adults 45 and older. The maker of the test, Palo Alto, California-based biotechnology company Guardant Health, announced Monday that this is the first blood test to be approved by the FDA as a primary screening option for colorectal cancer, and it’s the first approved blood screening test for colorectal cancer that meets requirements for Medicare reimbursement. For patients with commercial insurance plans, the cost of the test may vary depending on their individual plan coverage. The list price for the...

How the Pentagon’s top-brass generals burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers all while losing the wars they were supposed to be winning. My new book, A Few Bad Men, details the mendacity and mad dishonesty of retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The fact that it was written by a Marine once under his command, whom he betrayed for the sake of politics and getting to slap on another star, says volumes about this once-lionized figure. It all goes back to an incident in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Court of Inquiry trial of...

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is citing her recently born child as another reason she should be allowed to delay the start of a more than 11-year prison sentence while her lawyers appeal her conviction for duping investors about the capabilities of her failed company's blood-testing technology. The birth of Holmes' second child was confirmed in court documents filed last week in advance of a March 17 hearing about her bid to remain free during an appeals process that could take years to complete. The filing didn't disclose the date of the birth or the child's gender, but the news...

Researchers at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Medicine have developed a Theranos-like test that screens for health measures using a single drop of blood. The approach, relayed in a Jan. 19 study in Nature Biomedical Engineering, combines a finger-prick device with multiomics technologies that assess a variety of proteins, fats, metabolism byproducts, and inflammatory markers. "Even more importantly, we've shown you can collect the blood drop at home and mail it into the lab," said Michael Snyder, PhD, director of the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine and senior author of the study, in a Jan. 19 university news release....

Doctors hail new era for cancer screening as major research shows effectiveness of Galleri test Doctors have told health services to prepare for a new era of cancer screening after a study found a simple blood test could spot multiple cancer types in patients before they develop clear symptoms. The Pathfinder study offered the blood test to more than 6,600 adults aged 50 and over, and detected dozens of new cases of disease. Many cancers were at an early stage and nearly three-quarters were forms not routinely screened for. It is the first time results from the Galleri test, which...

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.

Oxford scientists have tested a new cancer blood test that can accurately identify the presence of tumors and whether or not they've Cancer treatments have better outcomes if the disease is caught early, but unfortunately symptoms often don’t present until later. A new Oxford study demonstrates an experimental blood test that shows promise in detecting a variety of cancers in patients, and even whether or not they’ve spread. Being able to go into a doctor’s office for a routine blood test to check for cancer would save countless lives, so of course the idea has attracted much scientific study. Different...

The Canadian government said Wednesday that passengers must have a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days before they arrive in the country. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the measure will be implemented in the next few days. Canada already requires those entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days and it has already banned all flights from the United Kingdom because of the new variant of COVID-19 spreading there. The decision came a day after the premier of Canada’s largest province said he had ordered his finance minister to end a Caribbean vacation he took at a time...

Scientists have developed a blood test and new scoring system that may help doctors predict which COVID-19 patients are at risk for severe disease and therefore in need of more intervention, according to a new study published in the journal EBioMedicine. A blood test and scoring system could help doctors predict which COVID-19 patients are at risk for severe disease. (Photo: Getty Images) In the study, scientists performed blood tests on 80 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and then measured the patients’ levels of two different cytokines — IL-6 and IL-10 — which act as messengers for the immune system. The...

A new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease has shown it can be just as accurate or better than the current standards for diagnosis, performing nearly on par with potentially expensive PET brain scans and invasive spinal taps for cerebrospinal fluid. Presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, multiple researchers debuted studies demonstrating how certain proteins found in the bloodstream could warn of the neurodegenerative disease—including up to two decades before any outward signs of dementia.

Let the government-pressed coronavirus-tied blood collections of citizens begin. And begin they have. They have in Georgia at least, where the state’s Department of Public Health recently announced, in cooperation with both Fulton County and Dekalb counties’ Boards of Health, that “to learn more about the spread of COVID-19,” an “investigation” has commenced — and it’s an “investigation” that’s leading government officials to make random stops at randomly selected residences and ask random citizens for, get this, their blood. Citizens’ DNA in the hands of unelected government officials. Hmm, what could go wrong there? Specifically, Georgia’s health wonks want to...

The team at Johns Hopkins University, where the test was developed, say a commercial product is years away and they are working to fine tune their test -- many cancers were not found by the blood test alone. But their results are the first to demonstrate that it's possible to screen people for several types of cancer at once with a blood test. They tested about 10,000 women with no symptoms. Those who had a positive test then were given combination PET and CT scans to look for tumors. Out of the 10,000 women, the test turned up 26 cancers...

With a White House increasingly anxious to get the economy in gear and an approved vaccine for the novel coronavirus still months away at best, public health officials are hoping that tens of millions of Americans will have access to a simple blood test that can identify recovered patients who've developed some kind of immune response to the virus. The idea behind the push is that people who have been exposed to the virus form antibodies in their bloodstream that may help them to fight off another infection. The hope is that the body's antibodies against COVID-19 can diminish the...

How long can the US economy remain shut down because of the coronavirus? As long as it takes, say many health experts. Until Easter, President Trump wishes. Like him, many officials around the world may be worried that strict lockdowns and quarantines will have a massive impact on the economy the longer they run. The UK famously attempted herd immunity before realizing the strategy was doomed to kill countless COVID-19 patients. It pivoted towards social distancing in an attempt to flatten the curve of the novel coronavirus. The longer we stay indoors and avoid others, the more time we buy...

[T]he U.S. government is on the hunt for effective ways to screen large populations for PTSD. In a process of elimination based on how consistently certain blood-based markers could be linked to PTSD, the researchers sieved out almost all of the candidate factors. They finally ended with a group of 27 chemical signatures that together with heart rate offered the best accuracy for identifying PTSD. Some but not all of the markers had previously been linked to the condition and include measures related to insulin levels and blood clotting. The test panel detected a person as having a positive PTSD...

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. It is simple enough to be included in routine annual health checks alongside other tests such as for high blood pressure or cholesterol. The test, called CancerLocator, has been developed by the University of California, and works by hunting for the DNA from tumours which circulates in the blood of cancer patients. The team discovered that tumours which...

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. It is simple enough to be included in routine annual health checks alongside other tests such as for high blood pressure or cholesterol. The test, called CancerLocator, has been developed by the University of California, and works by hunting for the DNA from tumours which circulates in the blood of cancer patients. The team discovered that tumours which...