A scientific paper has been published in the Annals of Oncology, showing the findings of a study looking at the effectiveness of the GRAIL test. This has been conducted ahead of a much larger initiative being undertaken in England over the coming months which will involve 140,000 people who have not previously been identified as having cancer.
The small study trial has looked at the effectiveness of the test among 2823 people with cancer and 1254 people without cancer. The test had a 65% effectiveness for detecting those cancers for which there are no screening options such as oesophageal, liver and pancreatic cancers. Effectiveness of the test was found to increase as the cancers reached a later stage. The test was also found to have a low false positive rate and a high degree of accuracy in determining where the cancer was located.
The GRAIL test involves taking blood tests which are then carefully analysed in order to detect up to 50 different types of cancer. The objective being to identify undiagnosed cancers. It is hoped this will be of particular value for those difficult to diagnose cancers which tend to be picked up in the later stages.
The test involves looking for cell-free DNA shed by tumours in the blood. Genomic sequencing is then used to test for changes to the DNA and artificial intelligence is used to determine which changes suggest cancer is present.
Findings from this trial study were reported in The Times, The Express and The Guardian.