Science: Liquid Biopsy Cancer Screening Battle Is Over! 10,000 prospective studies show that liquid biopsy screening specificity of 98.9%, can detect traditional screening can not find cancer

A recent study from Johns Hopkins University, called DETECT-A, for the first time showed that 10 types of cancer that can be found in the body of asymptomatic middle-aged and elderly people can be found with liquid biopsy technology in conjunction with imaging tests such as PET-CTspecifically, the study used liquid biopsy technology to detect nearly 10,000 elderly people aged 65-75, and for liquid biopsy results abnormal, and after review of the subjects, will be through PET-CT imaging examination for final diagnosis, thus individually detected 26 cases of cancer can not be found by traditional screening methodsthe detection rate, liquid biopsies first found the number of cancer patients, and traditional screening methods found the number of basically the same, no overlap between patients, and the detection of false positive rate of only about 1%, thereby significantly reducing the occurrence of over-testing and treatmentAlthough the biopsy is still somewhat imperfect, it is already promisingin fact, technically speaking, this time the liquid biopsy technology is an earlier version of cancerSEEK technology proposed by the same team at Johns Hopkins University in 2018But the DETECT-A study, which launched in 2017, has yet to be proposed for CancerSEEK, which has a high-rise aia involvedthis earlier version of the test, which did not change much in principle, was still aimed at 16 cancer-related gene mutations in the blood of the subjects, as well as eight or nine protein fragmentsIn the results analysis, the initial test abnormally high value of the subjects, will be re-tested for blood tests to confirm, and not using Cancer SEEK artificial intelligence analysisin order to ensure the specificity of the test, "abnormally high value" is often much higher than the reference value of ordinary testing, so in the first test of the study, the detection of abnormal subjects only 4.9% of the overall, while the retest positive subjects only 134 people, equivalent to 1.35% of all subjectsonly tested positive on both tests, and the team ruled out non-tumor factors, subjects would only receive PET-CT testsBut not all subjects were diagnosed by PET-CT, and some were diagnosed with cancer during the interval between tests after the first positivein summary, the team defined 26 cases of "cancer first detected by liquid biopsy", equivalent to 98.9% of the specificity of liquid biopsies, combined with imaging tests such as PET-CT, the number reached 99.6 percent!but this nearly 10,000 subjects, a total of 96 cases of cancer during the follow-up period, so even if all kinds of imaging tests are counted together, the sensitivity of liquid biopsy is only 27%, the positive prediction value (PPV) is about 40%of the 26 cancers detected in, 9 were lung cancer and 6 were ovarian cancer, in addition to colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer and lymphomaIn stages, 17 of the 26 cases were also local cancers, and 5 cases were detected during phase I From the corresponding indicators of detection, 14 cases of cancer were detected by detecting genetic mutations, the most common is TP53, as well as PIK3CA, KRAS and BRAF Another 11 cases were found through protein fragments, ca15-3, CEA, these classic tumor markers, and the remaining one was double confirmed and one of the theoretical advantages of liquid biopsies, safety, was also reflected in the DETECT-A study, with only 1% of the subjects undergoing PET-CT tests based on false positive test results, and 0.22% of patients undergoing unnecessary surgery, none of which resulted in serious adverse events , however, since the DETECT-A study allowed subjects to participate in routine cancer screening programs, 24 cases of cancer were detected during follow-up and did not overlap with 26 cases found in liquid biopsies, most of which were early stage breast cancer there were 46 more cases of cancer, which were not detected by a liquid biopsy or screened, but mostly were cancer-based So there's still a lot of room for improvement in liquid biopsy technology, and in the words of an American Cancer Society (ACS) official, "now is not the time to really apply it, and more research is needed." but even so, the results confirm for the first time the feasibility of liquid biopsies in normal populations In the words of the authors, "Liquid biopsies are not intended to replace routine cancer screening, but to complement each other, and we believe that this combination of use will ultimately achieve the goal of early detection of two-thirds of cancers in the United States." "
of course, the cost is better to be a little lower Perhaps from the goal is really achieved, that is, the blink of an eye The progress of life science has refreshed too many people, what's the bad thing about a little more? When the odd dot cake will not have to chase the "blood cancer" rumors, but on the rush to call everyone to do testing