Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by plank_time on Friday June 25, 2021 @09:18AM (#27630400)

Again, absolutely absurd. Many cancers have no symptoms until it’s too late. Do you even understand this? At that point the choices for treatment are extremely limited.

Even breast cancer needs x-rays to detect lumps, not detect cancer. You need a subsequent biopsy to differentiate. That’s our technology right now. If we had a blood test to detect cancer, not lumps, it’s game changing.

Maybe after a generation of early detection, new outcomes will emerge if we can detect the most deadly cancers early. You’re taking old studies and applying them to new technologies and saying “it won’t work.” It’s ridiculous that you are doing this.

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Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by jacquesm on Friday June 25, 2021 @09:29AM (#27630528)

Even if you detect cancer you will still need a biopsy to figure out which bits are the cancer and which bits are just 'lumps'.

Yes, it is a game changer, but it is not the kind of game changer that this is being made out to be here and mass screening using this method is not going to lead to improved outcomes.

As an extra tool in the toolbox of the diagnostician it is very useful.

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Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by plank_time on Friday June 25, 2021 @09:35AM (#27630570)

It’s pretty easy. If blood test says “liver cancer positive. Colon cancer negative.” you check the liver for cancer. No need to check the colon for cancer. No need to scan the entire body for lumps.

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Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by graeme on Friday June 25, 2021 @12:30PM (#27632950)

Not that easy. “Check the liver for cancer” has lots of risks: surgery and the resulting tissue injury.

I’m generally inclined towards the position of more testing....but there are very real tradeoffs to any of the interventions that a blood test could prompt.

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Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by jghn on Friday June 25, 2021 @01:24PM (#27633754)

Also, you might have identified liver cancer that came from the patient's kidney. Or a colorectal cancer that came from the patient's liver.

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Re:Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enou... by colinmhayes on Friday June 25, 2021 @05:19PM (#27636400)

What happens when it turns out that most of the people having surgery don't have cancer? Because that's the reality of tests with a .5% false positive rate if less than 1% of the population is positive.

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