The National Health Service in England is rolling out blood tests for lung cancer screening.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
England’s health system said it will roll out new cancer testing known as liquid biopsy, first to 15,000 lung cancer patients, then to many others. Experts say the technology is revolutionary because it can detect disease faster without surgery. NPR’s Yuki Noguchi has more.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: UCLA pathology professor Jasmine Zhou has researched liquid biopsy’s ability to detect things, like liver cancer, from a vial of blood. This is how she sums up the potential savings associated with using it.
JASMINE ZHOU: Time saving, money saving and pain saving.
NOGUCHI: Liquid biopsy is essentially a blood test that identifies fragments of DNA cast off by cancer cells in the body.
ZHOU: Cancer is actually a genetic disease.
NOGUCHI: Because of that, Zhou says, these DNA fragments can be decoded to identify the sub type of cancer a patient has. That allows for more personalized treatment using drugs and therapies designed to target that specific tumor. Targeting not only reduces side effects. It’s more effective and a big reason far more people are surviving cancer. Zhou says the technology is still new and sometimes cannot detect disease at its earliest stage. But it’s so promising as an alternative to surgery, she applauds England’s National Health Service for embracing it. Based on its successful pilot program, the NHS will now use blood tests as a first line of screening for lung cancer patients in England. Zhou hopes other countries will follow its lead.
ZHOU: This really set an example for the world.
NOGUCHI: It plans to roll out similar screening programs for breast cancers and others as well. Doing so could shorten the time to treatment, the health service said, and potentially help avoid unnecessary testing or even chemotherapy for some patients. Already, it said its pilot program saved 11 million British pounds, or nearly $15 million, in annual costs. Ryan Schoenfeld, the CEO of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, a nonprofit in New York bringing cancer research to market. He says, while England is now the world leader, liquid biopsy is increasingly used in the U.S. as well.
RYAN SCHOENFELD: You could use liquid biopsy to be more dynamic, more nimble, to switch therapies, to find the right therapy. So it’s got a lot of potential for patients.
NOGUCHI: And in the long run, he says, he hopes it will be used to detect more cancers earlier. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
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