New Blood Test for As to Now Deadly Dodgers Of Disease, Cancer
Posted: Monday, January 03, 2011
by David Levitt
One of the most elusive and devastating diseases known to mankind may soon be able to admire the light of day. Although not yet ready to go silently into the dead of night, a new blood test may make diagnosis and treatment simpler, faster, and more effective for the millions of people that acquire this as to now deadly dodgers of disease, Cancer.
The test captures stray cells that are in the blood from tumors that have either started to spread or are likely to, potentially transforming care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon, and lung. Doctors will use the test to predict what treatments to use, and to find out more quickly which treatments are working so they then can change to more effective treatments faster.
The test uses a microchip resembling a lab slide with 78,000 tiny posts similar to bristles on a hair brush. Antibodies on the posts bind to tumor cells. Blood is forced across the chip and the cells ping off of the posts like balls in a pinball machine. The cancer cells stick to the posts, and a stain makes them glow so that researchers can capture and count them.
The test can extricate one cell out of a billion or so healthy cells, said Mehmet Toner, a bioengineer from Harvard who helped design it. The accuracy of the test was determined by spiking blood samples with cancer cells and then searched for with the chip. Studies have been published in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Science Translational Medicine.
This is the most promising test out of dozens of others that are being researched, according to Bob McCormack, technology chief for Veridex, a unit of J@J that markets CellSearch, the most widely used test to date for cancer cell testing, but it only gives a cell count. Veridex and J@J's Ortho Biotech Oncology unit will be tasked with making the chip more practical for mass production.
Scientists have been surprised to find out that more patients harbor these cells than first believed, including a group of patients considered to have prostate confined cancer that they found out that about 75% of them had these cells in their blood systems already. Leading them to suspect that these cells are present in the blood soon after a tumor starts, or more have spread but are unseen.
Researchers still have a lot to learn about these cells, said Dr. Minetta Liu, a breast cancer specialist at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. "The dream is a woman comes in for her mammogram and gets a tube of blood drawn, so doctors can look for cancer cells as well as tumors on the imaging exam."
"This is like a liquid biopsy," said Dr. Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's cancer center and one of the test's inventors. It avoids painful tissue sampling, and a better way of monitoring than periodic imaging scans. It may ultimately offer a way to screen for cancer besides mammograms, colonoscopies and other less than ideal methods used now.
This may not be a cure for cancer, but after many years, and trillions of dollars of research, this may be the best thing to happen for cancer patients to date. Offering better, less intrusive diagnostics than ever before, sooner detection, better monitoring and more focused treatment could save many thousands of lives, in this new blood test for as to now deadly dodgers of disease, cancer.
(Source:) Reported in the Houston Chronicle by the Associated Press, Marilynn Marchione, "Blood test for cancer is creating excitement," Jan. 3, 2011
This Article has been viewed 1,314 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (7 total)That's great information. Let's hope there is a cancer to rout cancer from the face of this earth. :-)Beautifully said DM!
I seen something about this on the evening news last night.Darn, they beat me to it. Well, you know what they say, you snooze, you lose. Thanks David.
"The cancer cells stick to the posts, and a stain makes them glow so that researchers can capture and count them." "This may not be a cure for cancer, but after many years, and trillions of dollars of research, this may be the best thing to happen for cancer patients to date."You have done a superb job, David, in putting this amazing scientific research into words that a layman can understand. ~mogama~Thank you Mr. Mogama. Actually I put them in words that a layman could write.:) As much as I would like to take credit for the description, that belongs to Marilynn Marchione of the Associated Press. I'm sure she got it from one of those darn scientists she got the story from though, so what goes around comes around, heh?
Nice bit of info to talk about and explain to us--thanks.
SteveMy pleasure Steve.
Doctors and labs have been able to detect cancer cells by routine blood tests now for quite a while; The difference in this experiment is that - before it was sort of a catch-as-catch can random catching- they've now developed a way in which they hope to be able to round these cells up- so to speak, and cut to the chase- Great news- I hope it makes it to the public forum before too long- could save a lot of lives...maybe even ours!That's right, they could get a cell count. This test will help them detect a much smaller level of cancer cells and allow them to start treatment sooner and track the effectiveness of those treatments, so they can change if necessary at a much earlier stage of the cancer's development. If worrying about paying for the treatment doesn't kill you first.:-) Thanks Ms. Ella
Hi David I found this piece you wrote very interesting indeed, and agree with what you said "This is not a cure for cancer but after many years, and trillions of dollars of research, this may be the best thing to happen for cancer patients". Thank you for sharing
Keep well
KacyThank you for reading, and the comment Ms. Carr. Yes it took plenty of tax dollars and charitable giving to get us to this point. Have a wonderful day.
All my life the scare of cancer has really been a big one for me. The idea that there could be a less intrusive - and successful - cure is fabulous. Great article, David, thanks.Not a cure sweetheart, I wish it were. But it is the earliest form of detection that they have come up with so far, and as you know early detection with cancer does save lives, in this case many hopefully. As I said to Ms. Ella though, now it's just getting to a place where more people can afford this early warning test. Thank you very much, as always my friend.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.