New blood test for better cancer diagnosis

Blood test detects 14 diseases, including various cancers

07/15/2014

With the help of a newly developed blood test many different cancers can be detected. For a long time, researchers worldwide have been looking for biomarkers that enable early diagnosis of various cancers through a single blood test. But so far the search has been unsuccessful. Because „the complexity of the body's response to the diseases makes it difficult to visualize them with only a few biomarkers, especially when many are present in small amounts“, The research team reports to Phillip Stafford of Arizona State University (Tempe, USA) in the prestigious journal „Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences“ (PNAS).

The US researchers have therefore developed a blood test for cancer diagnosis, which is based not on the principle of individual biomarkers, but instead the specific „immune signature“ checked. „This approach utilizes the response of antibodies to disease-related changes as well as the inherent signal enhancement with antigen-stimulated B-cell proliferation“, Write Stafford and colleagues. The test was able to reliably detect various cancers such as bone marrow cancer (multiple myeloma), breast cancer, esophageal cancer and glioblastoma (brain tumors). According to the researchers, the average accuracy was 95 percent. „These results illustrate the potential of the immunosorbent approach for the accurate, simultaneous classification of diseases“, so the conclusion of the US scientists.

Pattern of immune signature determined
The ideal diagnostic method would enable the early detection of a wide variety of diseases with the help of a single test that could be used for any disease, US researchers explain their approach. The current study has shown that immunosignature could fulfill these requirements in the future. Even today, 14 different diseases - including several types of cancer - can be reliably detected with the help of the developed test using the immune signature. In the development of their method, the scientists first used a so-called microarray (special biochip) with thousands of peptides, to which the antibodies could dock from the blood. „The pattern of binding to these peptides is the immune signature“, Report Stafford and colleagues. They then used 120 blood samples to test the signatures of sick and healthy people. So they could determine a pattern of the immune signature that indicates with high probability on various diseases. The review of the method based on 120 other blood sample have resulted in a classification accuracy of 95 percent, write the US researchers.

Numerous different diseases can be diagnosed with high accuracy
In a further step, the scientists controlled the „test sensitivity“ from more than 1,500 samples and were able to determine 14 different diseases with high accuracy. These include numerous cancers such as lung cancer, ovarian cancer and the cancers already mentioned. The scientists are already working on the development of a new test to determine the immune signature using 30,000 peptides (instead of 10,000 previously peptides). This would allow a much finer grading of the immune signature and potentially more disease could be diagnosed using a single test. This technology has reached a stage in which disease-typical patterns can be reliably identified and verified, said Professor Rienk Offringa of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg „World Online“. However, further investigations would still have to show whether the diseases can be detected at an early stage. In addition, so far the process has been tested exclusively by its developers. Overall, however, the approach appears to be a promising diagnostic method that could be used in many cases in the future. (Fp)