News of a breakthrough in cancer detection comes from British scientists who have devised a blood test that can detect cancer before a tumour develops.

This potentially exciting development in the field of cancer research is the first that is able to accurately read the signals in a person’s immune system as a cancer germinates. It is thought that these signals are present up to five years before the cancer can be seen so giving surgeons the opportunity to intervene at an early stage before the cancer develops.  For years there have been complaints that medical advances had not developed better cancer detection practices, now those concerns may be answered.

Britain currently has a poor record of early diagnosis and disease survival with detection particularly difficult in lung, pancreas and gullet cancers. The new breakthrough follows 15 years of research by scientists in Nottingham and the USA. It will be introduced in the United States next month, initially to aid smokers at the greatest risk of lung cancer.

Professor John Robertson, who led the research, said that work was underway on a breast cancer blood test and added that the new technology should significantly improve the detection of 90% of solid cancers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article7141460.ece