Observe Progress of Tumor Treatment With a Blood Test
It is known that the way to monitor tumor the progress of tumor treatment is by performing surgery or a scan, but recently British researchers have found a way to do this without having to perform either a surgery or a scan. The trick, according to the researchers, is simply by performing a blood test.
These researchers explained that a blood test can be done to revolutionize cancer treatment. They use blood analysis to detect lethal mutations in 20 of 38 patients suffering from breast and ovarian cancer. They even managed to build a picture of how a woman’s breast cancer in response to different treatments for 16 months.
From the story above, we could see clearly that this blood test could be another breakthrough in the medical world. So, when will this method applied to the public? It is mentioned that this method will be provided for patients in five years. One thing for sure, is that this blood test could potentially save thousands of lives. Currently cancer patients always uses surgical tissue samples for analysis.
Besides that, a recent test using sequencing (a technique for reading genetic code) allows you to look for small pieces of DNA, exactly where a cancerous tumor spills it into the bloodstream and that’s what is not controlled by the current screening methods.
The study itself was led by Dr Nitzan Rosenfeld, from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute. “This kind of blood test has the potential to change the way we diagnose and treat cancer,” said Rosenfeld, according to the Daily Mail.
He also describes that this method has great advantages. A blood test is safer and cheaper as it can be used to identify mutations of cancer without surgery or biopsy. A blood test is more accurate in assessing whether the type of first treatment was successful or not. This shows how effective a blood test could be. Previously, it was also mentioned that a blood test could detect postnatal depression. A simple blood test can even detect heart disease.
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