Blood Tests and Cancer Diagnosis

There are a multiplicity of tests for cancer diagnosis, mostly genetic in nature, but a recent example details the use of the immune system.

In a recent paper in The Scientist they report:

Researchers from Arizona State University in Tempe have created an inexpensive blood test that can detect several common cancers based on the immune responses they evoke. They used arrays of randomly generated peptides to bind antibodies from human blood samples belonging either to healthy controls or to people with one of five different cancers. Based on the binding patterns—or immunosignatures—the researchers were able to distinguish between all five cancer types. The team also used another array of randomly generated peptides to differentiate among a broader range of cancers and other diseases. 

However there were some doubts expressed:

But Vlahou and Mischak argued that such a general cancer screen has limited clinical relevance, as doctors tend to test specific at-risk populations rather than the general population. Vlahou said that doctors would be more interested in validating biomarkers to differentiate between bladder cancer and benign bladder conditions, for instance, rather than administering a catch-all cancer test. “I don’t think finding a multi-cancer test is going to make a clinical impact,” she said.

There is such a proliferation of tests that one wonders what the clinical significance is.