New blood test is another breakthrough in cancer diagnosis

According to TASS, the University of Harvard has developed a simple and effective diagnosis and localization system for more than 20 types of cancer. The analysis is based on the results of a study of DNA parts in the patient’s blood. A search for the so-called methyl tags (attached methyl groups) is carried out. This is a more effective method compared to conventional DNA decoding.

It is known that there are epigenetic changes that occur due to the addition of methyl groups. These changes do not affect the DNA sequence itself, but do affect gene expression and DNA reading. If you know the number and location of “errors” in the genome caused by methylation, you can identify the genes that work incorrectly and provoke the development of cancer.

The scientists have studied of how the activity of different parts of genome changes is case of development of breast cancer, rectum cancer, esophagus cancer, leukaemia and other oncological diseases. A database of markers specific to each type of cancer was collected. These markers have been successfully identified in the blood of volunteers with cancer. The analysis showed traces of cancer in almost all patients with tumours of the second, third and fourth stages. Only 0.6% of healthy people in the control group received a false positive diagnosis. The accuracy of detecting cancer in individual organs was 89%.

Source: TASS