Today women use mammograms to test for lumps in their breasts but a new study shows that a blood test could one day be a more accurate way to test for breast cancer. The new clinical study was funded by Cancer Research UK in collaboration with the university of Leicester and Imperial College London.
How It Works:
-
Clinical researchers will compare the DNA of the women diagnosed with breast cancer to those that do not have breast cancer using blood samples.
-
Researchers will then try to find the consistent DNA markers.
What Does This Mean For Patients?
-
A more effective was to test for breast cancer
-
Improvement of treatment
-
Detection of whether the patient is more likely to relapse
-
What drugs the patients particular type of tumor will respond to
Right now this research is focusing specifically on Breast Cancer but they hope to expand blood testing to detect other cancers like bowel and lung.
“As things stand we aren’t able to monitor breast cancer patients after they’ve had surgery and treatment — which is like treating diabetes but not measuring blood sugar levels. The new blood test could change that.” – Dr. Jacqui Shaw, principal investigator from the University of Leicester
