LONDON (Sputnik) – This new way of detecting cancer has been developed by a team of scientists from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. This is a metabolomic analysis of the blood to identify different types of cancer and their metastasis in the body.
The team of scientists has observed that blood metabolite profiles are different in healthy people, people with metastatic cancer and people with localized cancer. These differences make it possible to identify cancer and its spread through a blood test.
“Cancer cells have unique metabolomic fingerprints due to their different metabolic processes. We are only now beginning to understand how metabolites produced by tumors can be used as biomarkers to accurately detect cancer,” explained study co-author James Larkin.
In this way, magnetic fields and elevated radio waves were used to profile the levels of natural chemicals (metabolites) in the blood test.
To check the effectiveness of the test, the researchers applied it to 300 patients with nonspecific cancer symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue. According to the results of the study published in Clinical Cancer Research, the blood test was able to correctly diagnose the cancer in 19 of 20 patients. The test also identified with 94% accuracy those who had the disease in a metastatic stage.
“The goal is to produce a cancer test that any physician can order. We envision that metabolomics analysis of blood will enable accurate, timely and cost-effective triage of patients with suspected cancer, and could enable better prioritization of patients based on of the additional early information this test provides about the disease,” said study lead author Fay Probert.
Scientists have shown that this technology can successfully identify whether multiple sclerosis patients are progressing to the later stages of the disease, even before trained clinicians realize it, and find it surprising that the same technology is now showing promise in other diseases like cancer.
Photo: Cell Reference Image / Pixabay / Sputnik
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