In clinical study, blood test can detect range of cancers
Editor’s Note: Enrollment in the PATHFINDER study is temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a study involving thousands of participants, a new blood test detected more than 50 types of cancer as well as their location within the body with a high degree of accuracy, according to an international team of researchers led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard affiliate, and the Mayo Clinic. The results, published online today by the Annals of Oncology, indicate that the test — which identified some particularly dangerous cancers that lack standard approaches to screening — can play a key role in early detection of cancer. Early detection can often be critical to successful treatment. Developed by Grail, Inc., of Menlo Park, Calif., the test uses next-generation sequencing to analyze the arrangement of chemical units called methyl groups on the DNA of cancer cells. Adhering to specific sections of DNA, methyl groups help control whether...