New Push to Develop Cancer Blood Test – Researchers have announced plans to develop a blood test that can detect a cancer cell that has been shed from a tumor.
A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving a step closer to being on the market.
A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.
“This is like a liquid biopsy” that avoids painful tissue sampling
Dr. Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital’s cancer center and one of the test’s inventors and health care giant Johnson & Johnson.
Prostate Test Found to Save Few Lives
The PSA blood test, used to screen for prostate cancer, saves few lives and leads to risky and unnecessary treatments for large numbers of men, two large studies have found.
Prostate cancer treatment can result in impotence and incontinence when surgery is used to destroy the prostate, and, at times, painful defecation or chronic diarrhea when the treatment is radiation.
Blood test could find cancer fast, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Presstelegram.com
https://www.presstelegram.com/2011/01/02/blood-test-could-find-cancer-fast/
Prostate Test Found to Save Few Lives, Gina Kolata, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/health/19cancer.html?ref=health
