Medical breakthrough: blood test can show cancer risk in seven years
Kyiv • UNN
The study found 618 proteins in the blood associated with 19 types of cancer, with 107 proteins detected 7 years before diagnosis, indicating the possibility of early detection of cancer risk.
According to research, proteins associated with cancer may begin to appear in people's blood seven years before diagnosis. This is reported by Cancer Research UK, citing a study by Oxford Population Health, UNN reports .
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The study identified 618 proteins in the blood of cancer patients associated with 19 different types of disease, including intestinal, prostate, and breast cancer.
Of these, about 107 proteins were found in people whose blood was collected at least seven years before the cancer diagnosis.
It is noted that understanding the molecular mechanisms that lead to cancer in the early stages allows for the development of more effective strategies to prevent this disease.
The results show that these proteins may be involved in the earliest stages of cancer. Intercepting them may give us a way to stop the development of the disease completely.
The first Oxford Population Health study analyzed blood samples from the UK Biobank taken from more than 44,000 people, including 4,900 people who were later diagnosed with cancer. The team of scientists studied 1,463 proteins from each blood sample and compared them between people who developed cancer and those who did not.
This made it possible to identify molecules associated with an increased risk of cancer. In addition, 182 proteins were found that differed in the blood three years before cancer diagnosis, indicating that it is possible to identify early biomarkers of this disease.
In the second study, researchers examined the genetic data of more than 300,000 cancer cases to determine which proteins in the blood may be associated with the development of different types of cancer and which of them may influence new treatments. As a result, they identified about 40 proteins that affect the risk of developing nine different types of cancer, including bladder, breast, endometrial, head and neck, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, kidney, and non-melanoma malignant cancer.
The researchers emphasize that further studies are still needed to understand the exact role of proteins in cancer development, identify the most reliable proteins for testing, develop methods for detecting these proteins in clinical practice, and establish which drugs can target these proteins to fight cancer.
