U.S. researchers are working on an experimental DNA test that could pave the way for a simple blood test to detect breast cancer.
A team at Chronix Biomedical, a privately-owned U.S. company that works on cancer diagnosis techniques, reports they've had good success with a DNA breast cancer test.
They report, in a research paper published this week, that their test was able to detect 70 per cent of breast cancer cases, and clear 100 per cent of women who did not have breast cancer.
But, because of the huge expenses involved in conducting each test, it could still be a long time before the test is widely available.
Still, the company says this latest research gives them hope they are on the right track.
The test works by detecting the specific DNA biomarkers that are emitted from dead and dying breast cells.
While millions of the body's cells die each day, the Chronix team believes it has found the unique "DNA fingerprint" that dying breast cells emit. They were able to do that after they sequenced the entire genomes of 26 breast cancer patients and 67 healthy women.
To test their DNA fingerprint discovery, they sequenced the blood of 38 women with ductal carcinoma and compared the information with 87 healthy patients and those with other medical conditions.
Their results are published in the journal Molecular Cancer Research.
The company says the results are encouraging.
"This study supports the potential of an entirely new approach to identifying cancer at its earliest stages when therapies may be most effective," said Dr. William M. Mitchell, a professor of pathology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a co-author of the study.
"The promising diagnostic sensitivity and specificity achieved in this study further confirm the value of circulating DNA for disease detection and suggest that laboratory tests using this approach may have the potential both to screen large populations for cancer before symptoms appear and to monitor patients for the recurrence of cancer once treated."
The company says the test could have other uses. Not only could it help screen healthy women for breast cancer, but it could help tailor treatments for those who are diagnosed.
The DNA test could, for example, help identify the genetic differences that would make a patient more likely to respond to certain medications. The blood test could also help determine whether a treatment is working.
But there is still at least one major hurdle to cross before such a test becomes available: cost.
Using the DNA sequencers currently available to researchers costs thousands of dollars per test.
Though companies are working to get those costs down, they will have to come down significantly before a blood test would be practical, Chronix Biomedical's CEO, Howard Urnovitz, told Reuters.
Urnovitz says the company is now also working on tests for other cancers, including multiple myeloma, and other life-threatening conditions.
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