A new blood test can detect cancer earlier. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland have managed to use their new technology to distinguish healthy people from sick people with an accuracy of around 85 percent, the research institute announced on Thursday. Detecting a developing tumor at a very early stage is crucial for patients' survival, said the PSI.
Detecting cancer in the body or monitoring the course of therapy is generally time-consuming and often only occurs at a late stage when signs become obvious. According to PSI, the researchers achieved a breakthrough in this area. With their new technology, they were able to use blood samples to determine if cancer was present. They were also able to correctly determine the type of tumor – melanoma, glioma or head and neck tumor.
“This is the first time in the world that anyone has achieved this,” research group leader GV Shivashankar was quoted as saying in the statement. The researchers published their results in the journal “npj Precision Oncology”.
Specifically, researchers were able to prove that changes in the organization of the nucleus of certain blood cells provide an indication of a tumor in the body. To do this, they examined the so-called chromatin, the DNA packaged in a kind of ball, in the nucleus of blood cells, using a fluorescence microscope. They fed these microscopic images to an artificial intelligence (AI), which learned to recognize patterns in them.
According to the researchers, the new procedure will not only be applicable to the tumors examined, but to several other types of cancer in the future. However, there is still much work to be done before this procedure is approved for clinical practice, the PSI said. For example, studies with a larger number of participants are needed. But Shivashankar has no doubt that it will be used in practice: “The method exists,” he said.