Cancer could be detected three years before diagnosis with experimental blood test
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University say they have uncovered an advanced method for detecting cancer.
A new study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery and partly funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years prior to a cancer diagnosis.
The researchers analyzed plasma samples from a large Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study to assess risk factors for heart attack, stroke, heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, according to a press release.
Blood samples were analyzed from 26 participants who were diagnosed with cancer within six months of sample collection, and 26 who were not diagnosed with cancer.
Out of these 52 participants, eight scored positively on a multi-cancer early detection (MCED) lab test and were diagnosed with cancer within four months following blood collection.
MCED tests are an experimental type of cancer screening that looks for signs of multiple types of cancer at the same time, according to the American Cancer Society. These signs may include pieces of DNA, RNA or proteins from abnormal cells.
For six of these eight individuals, researchers were able to assess additional blood samples that were collected 3.1 to 3.5 years prior to diagnosis.
In four samples, researchers identified tumor-derived mutations (genetic alterations within cancer cells).
Lead study author Yuxuan Wang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, shared in a statement that investigators were surprised by the outcomes.
"Three years earlier provides time for intervention," she said. "The tumors are likely to be much less advanced and more likely to be curable."
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
Senior study author Bert Vogelstein, MD, Clayton Professor of Oncology and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins, said the study shows "the promise of MCED tests in detecting cancers very early, and sets the benchmark sensitivities required for their success."
Detecting cancer years before a clinical diagnosis could help "provide management with a more favorable outcome," noted senior author Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD, professor of oncology and Ludwig Center investigator.
"Of course, we need to determine the appropriate clinical follow-up after a positive test for such cancers," he added.
Fox News Digital reached out to Johns Hopkins for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Investors should consider this growth stock… it's SpaceX's competition
Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) is a US-listed growth stock that gives investors rare access to the commercial space sector. As a vertically integrated launch and space systems provider, Rocket Lab is often compared to SpaceX in its ambition and capabilities. But there's one crucial difference: you can actually buy shares in Rocket Lab, while SpaceX remains private. Rocket Lab delivers launch services, builds small and medium-class rockets, and manufactures spacecraft components for a range of commercial, government, and defense customers. With rapid revenue growth, an impressive order book, and expansion into new markets, Rocket Lab offers public market investors a way to participate in the booming space economy. It targets many of the same opportunities as its more famous, privately held peer. Rocket Lab and SpaceX operate in the same commercial space sector but differ significantly in scale, maturity, and valuation. Rocket Lab's market cap is currently $12.85bn, with trailing 12 months (TTM) revenue of approximately $460m. Despite strong growth — revenue nearly doubled from $240m in 2023 — Rocket Lab remains a smaller, earlier-stage player focused on small to medium launch vehicles and spacecraft manufacturing. Its valuation multiples are extremely high, with a forward price-to-sales ratio of 22.3 times, reflecting investor optimism. SpaceX, by contrast, is a far more mature private company valued at about $350bn. It's projected to generate $15.5bn in revenue in 2025. This is driven by its dominant Falcon 9 launch services and rapidly growing Starlink satellite internet business. SpaceX's valuation implies roughly a 22.5 times multiple on forward revenue. This is broadly in line with Rocket Lab. Focusing on Rocket Lab, the company is projected to deliver rapid revenue growth over the next several years, with estimates rising from $573m in 2025 to $889 in 2026, $1.2bn in 2027, and $1.69bn in 2028. This represents annual growth rates consistently above 30%, and even a jump of nearly 77% in 2030. However, the number of analysts providing forecasts declines sharply after 2027, dropping from 11–14 analysts in the near term to just two or one by 2028 and 2030. The one analyst projecting as far as 2030 sees $4bn in revenue for the year. I had the chance to buy Rocket Lab shares at $15 just two months ago. I missed out as unfortunately my attention had been diverted elsewhere. However, I found another entry point. And personally, I see this as an investment to hold for a very long period. The space industry is still in its early innings, with enormous potential as satellite launches, lunar missions, and in-orbit services become increasingly mainstream. And like any investment, there are risks. Rocket Lab remains loss-making. It's expected to turn a profit in 2026, when it will trade at 620 times earnings. And while this moderates to 140 times in 2027, it's still expensive and introduces plenty of execution risk. However, I certainly believe UK investors should consider this one. It could be a real winner going forward. The post Investors should consider this growth stock… it's SpaceX's competition appeared first on The Motley Fool UK. More reading 5 Stocks For Trying To Build Wealth After 50 One Top Growth Stock from the Motley Fool James Fox has positions in Rocket Lab. The Motley Fool UK has no position in any of the shares mentioned. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Motley Fool UK 2025 Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Community collaboration crucial in addressing homelessness in Abilene
ABILENE, Texas () – Young professionals gathered at the Community Foundation of Abilene for an 'Abi Chat' during the Abilene Young Professionals luncheon. Networking took a purposeful turn to address homelessness through collaboration with the West Texas Homeless Network. The West Texas Homeless Network (WTHN) is a coalition of organizations dedicated to advocating for action that realigns systems and resources to end homelessness in Abilene, rather than merely managing it. The WTHN is neither a non-profit nor a for-profit organization; instead, it focuses on helping communities prevent and eliminate homelessness through collaboration and strategic planning. The Executive Director of Abilene Hope Haven shared why events like this are important in keeping the conversation with the public and continuing to address the needs of the Big Country Homeless community. 'We have a great network of people. We always are going to need to fill different gaps, depending on what's going on in the climate of our community. But we have a wealth of providers in the network that are really good at doing a holistic approach to those experiencing homelessness,' Horton shared. Horton says the Abilene community's wealth of resources and willingness to work together are its strengths. Whether a person needs help with mental health, food insecurity, substance abuse, or any number of issues that homeless neighbors face, the network is ready and willing to step in. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Forget 'biological age' tests — longevity experts are using an $800 under-the-radar blood test to measure aging in real-time
Doctors and scientists are using a blood plasma test to study longevity. The test measures proteins and can tell you about your organ health. This field of proteomics could one day help detect diseases like cancer before they start. Should you have that second cup of coffee? How about a little wine with dinner? And, is yogurt really your superfood? Scientists are getting closer to offering consumers a blood test that could help people make daily decisions about how to eat, drink, and sleep that are more perfectly tailored to their unique biology. The forthcoming tests could also help shape what are arguably far more important health decisions, assessing whether your brain is aging too fast, if your kidneys are OK, or if that supplement or drug you're taking is actually doing any good. It's called an organ age test, more officially (and scientifically) known as "proteomics" — and it's the next hot "biological age" marker that researchers are arguing could be better than all the rest. "If I could just get one clock right now, I'd want to get that clock, and I'd like to see it clinically available in older adults," cardiologist Eric Topol, author of the recent bestseller "Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity," told Business Insider. Topol said armed with organ age test results, people could become more proactive stewards of their own health, before it's too late. "When we have all these layers of data, it's a whole new day for preventing the disease," Topol said. "You see the relationship with women's hormones. You see the relationship with food and alcohol. You don't ever get that with genes." A test like this isn't available to consumers just yet, but it's already being used by researchers at elite universities and high-end longevity clinics. They hope it can become a tool any doctor could use to assess patient health in the next few years. A startup called Vero, which was spun out of some foundational proteomics research at Stanford University, is hoping to beta test a proteomics product for consumers this year. "Knowing your oldest organ isn't the point; changing the trajectory is," Vero co-founder and CEO Paul Coletta told a crowd gathered at the Near Future Summit in Malibu, California, last month. Coletta told Business Insider Vero's not interested in doing "wealthcare." The company plans to make its test available to consumers for around $200 a pop, at scale. Their draw only requires one vial of blood. The big promise of proteomics is that it could be a more precise real-time tool for tracking important but subtle changes that emerge inside each of us as we age. Genetic testing can measure how our bodies are built, spotting vulnerabilities in a person's DNA that might predispose them to health issues. Standard clinical measurements like a person's weight, blood pressure, or cholesterol readings are a useful proxy for potential health issues. Then there are the increasingly popular "biological age" tests available to consumers at home. Most of those look at "epigenetic changes" — how environmental factors affect our gene expression. Proteomics does something different and new. It measures the product that our bodies make based on all those genetic and environmental inputs: proteins. It offers a live assessment of how your body is running, not just how it's programmed. If validated in the next few years, these tests could become key in early disease detection and prevention. They could help influence all kinds of medical decisions, from big ones like "What drugs should I take?" to little ones like "How does my body respond to caffeine or alcohol?" Some high-end longevity clinics are already forging ahead using proteomics to guide clinical recommendations, albeit cautiously. Dr. Evelyne Bischof, a longevity physician who treats patients worldwide, said she uses proteomic information to guide some of the lifestyle interventions she recommends to her patients. She may suggest a more polyphenol-rich diet to someone who seems to have high inflammation and neuroinflammation based on proteomic test results, or may even suggest they do a little more cognitive training, based on what proteomics says about how their brain is aging. Dr. Andrea Maier, a professor of medicine and functional aging at the National University of Singapore, told BI she uses this measurement all the time in her longevity clinics. For her, it's just a research tool, but if the results of her ongoing studies are decent, she hopes to be able to use it clinically in a few years' time. "We want to know what kind of 'ageotype' a person is, so what type of aging personality are you, not from a mental perspective, but from a physical perspective," Maier said. "It's really discovery at this moment in time, and at the edge of being clinically meaningful." "Once we have that validated tool, we will just add it to our routine testing and we can just tick the box and say, 'I also want to know if this person is a cardiac ager, or a brain ager, or a muscle ager' because now we have a sensitive parameter — protein — which can be added," Maier said. The two big-name proteomics tests are Olink and SOMAscan. For now, their high-end screening costs around $400-$800 per patient. "I'm losing lots of money at the moment because of proteomics for clinical research!" Maier said. Top aging researchers at Stanford and Harvard are pushing the field forward, racing to publish more novel insights about the human proteome. The latest findings from Harvard aging researcher Vadim Gladyshev's lab, published earlier this year, suggest that as we age, each person may even stand to benefit from a slightly different antiaging grocery list. To research this idea, Gladyshev looked at proteins in the blood of more than 50,000 people in the UK, all participants in the UK Biobank who are being regularly tested and studied to learn more about their long-term health. He tracked their daily habits and self-reported routines like diet, occupation, and prescriptions, comparing those details to how each patient's organs were aging. He discovered some surprising connections. Yogurt eating, generally speaking, tended to be associated with better intestinal aging but had relatively no benefit to the arteries. White wine drinking, on the other hand, seemed to potentially confer some small benefit to the arteries while wreaking havoc on the gut. "The main point is that people age in different ways in different organs, and therefore we need to find personalized interventions that would fit that particular person," Gladyshev told BI. "Through measuring proteins, you assess the age of different organs and you say, 'OK, this person is old in this artery.'" For now, there's too much noise in the data to do more. Dr. Pal Pacher, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism who studies organ aging and injuries, told BI that proteomics is simply not ready for clinical use yet. There's just too much noise in the data. But he imagines a future where a more sophisticated protein clock could help link up which people may be most vulnerable to diseases like early cancer, kidney disease, and more. (A California-based proteomics company called Seer announced last weekend that it is partnering with Korea University to study whether proteomics can help more quickly diagnose cancer in young people in their 20s and 30s.) "How beautiful could it be in the future?" Maier said. "Instead of three hours of clinical investigation, I would have a tool which guides me much, much better, with more validity towards interventions." Read the original article on Business Insider
