An “incredibly exciting” development. A new blood test could predict the risk of breast cancer recurrence up to three years before tumors are visible on scans, according to a trial by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) London.
Each year, more than 2 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer, the most common type of cancer. Although treatments have improved over the decades, cancer often returns, and when it does, it is usually at a more advanced stage.
However, research presented at the world’s largest cancer conference has shown that a personalized “liquid biopsy” could provide a very early warning that cancer is returning. Results from a trial of these tests, revealed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago, suggest they could help determine which women need preventative therapy and which can avoid it.
“Breast cancer is much easier to treat before it spreads to other parts of the body, so being able to detect signs of recurrence as early as possible is vital to giving patients the best chance of survival,” said Professor Kristian Helin, general director of the RIC.
Very precise results
The test detects small amounts of cancer DNA in the blood. Trial results show that it is sensitive enough to accurately predict the risk of cancer returning months or even years before the usual signs or symptoms appear.
The researchers analyzed the blood of 78 patients with different types of breast cancer. The new test correctly reported a high risk of recurrence in the 11 patients who relapsed during the five-year trial. The 60 women in whom the test did not find cancerous molecules did not relapse, that is, there were no false negatives either. Three other patients had cancer cells detected once, but subsequent tests showed they had disappeared. The ICR did not provide complete data for the remaining four patients.
Start treatment earlier
“Early detection is one of our greatest weapons against breast cancer and these initial results, which suggest that tests could detect signs of breast cancer recurrence more than a year before symptoms appear, are incredibly exciting,” said Simon Vincent, director of research at Breast Cancer Now, which helped fund the trial. Experts hope these findings will lead to a strategy to start treatment much earlier.
“Breast cancer cells may remain in the body after surgery and other treatments, but there may be so few of these cells that they are undetectable on follow-up scans,” said author Isaac García-Murillas, director of the study at the Institute of Medicine. Cancer Research (ICR) in London. “These cells can cause breast cancer patients to relapse many years after their initial treatment.”
Previous research has suggested that blood tests can identify a relapse before it is visible on a scan. However, these tests tend to use a technique called whole exome sequencing that typically looks for between 16 and 50 mutations. The new test uses whole genome sequencing and looks for 1,800 mutations, making it much more sensitive.
Source: BFM TV
