Monday, April 20, 2015

New Blood Test Shows Promise in Cancer Battles

           Liquid Biopsy could be the next big innovation in cancer technology. It is a blood test that finds tiny pieces of cancer DNA in a patient's blood.The goal is that the blood test will allow oncologists to figure out if a treatment is working. If it is, the continual monitoring of the treatment will be performed using weekly blood tests in case the cancer develops resistance. The current method is a traditional biopsy or CT scan, and these cannot be performed every week. With the liquid biopsy, treatments that are not working could be done away with, sparing patients from the side effects and allotting more time to try alternative. Dr. Jose Baselga believes that this could help cancer cells build resistance to ineffective treatment. The test is still new, so researchers advise that more evaluation of the test are needed. The idea originated from the idea that fetuses shed little pieces of DNA into the bloodstream of their mothers. All growing cells, even tumors, shed tiny DNA fragments. Patients can get a scan to see if a tumor is shrinking; however, it can take a long time before the tumor shows up smaller on the scan. The scan also shows the scars and connective tissue with the cancer, so sometimes doctors interpret the scan as the cancer being present when it is actually gone.
          Although this is a still a new test, I can see it becoming a crucial role in discovering cancer early on. The current methods have too much room for error and take up a lot of time. People with cancer do not have a lot of time.

Original: Link1
Supplemental: Link2

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