A New Blood Test To Detect Cancer

A blood test that detects a single cancer cell among billions of healthy ones is to be trialled in hospitals.

Described by its inventors as a "liquid biopsy", the test could have a huge impact on cancer care.

Doctors at four big cancer centres in the US initially want to use it to help them predict the best way to treat a patient's cancer, and to rapidly discover whether that treatment is working.

Massachusetts General Hospital cancer centre chief Dr Daniel Haber, one of the test's inventors, said: "If you could find out quickly, 'this drug is working, stay on it,' or 'this drug is not working, try something else,' that would be huge."

Scientists believe stray cancerous cells in the blood can indicate a tumour has spread to other parts of the body, or is likely to.

The test could reduce the need for painful tissue sampling and speed up treatment for patients, who at the moment often have to wait vital months for a CT scan to see if their tumour is shrinking.

One of the hospitals chosen to start trials this year is New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Centre.