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Medicine Matters Home Article of the Week Feasibility of blood testing combined with PET-CT to screen for cancer and guide intervention

Feasibility of blood testing combined with PET-CT to screen for cancer and guide intervention

ARTICLE: Feasibility of blood testing combined with PET-CT to screen for cancer and guide intervention

AUTHORS: Anne Marie Lennon, Adam H. Buchanan, Isaac Kinde, Andrew Warren, Ashley Honushefsky, Ariella T. Cohain, David H. Ledbetter, Fred Sanfilippo, Kathleen Sheridan, Dillenia Rosica, Christian S. Adonizio, Hee Jung Hwang, Kamel Lahouel, Joshua D. Cohen, Christopher Douville, Aalpen A. Patel, Leonardo N. Hagmann, David D. Rolston, Nirav Malani, Shibin Zhou, Chetan Bettegowda, David L. Diehl, Bobbi Urban, Christopher D. Still, Lisa Kann, Julie I. Woods, Zachary M. Salvati, Joseph Vadakara, Rosemary Leeming, Prianka Bhattacharya, Carroll Walter, Alex Parker, Christoph Lengauer, Alison Klein, Cristian Tomasetti, Elliot K. Fishman, Ralph H. Hruban, Kenneth W. Kinzler, Bert Vogelstein, Nickolas Papadopoulos

JOURNAL: Science. 2020 Apr 28. pii: eabb9601. doi: 10.1126/science.abb9601. [Epub ahead of print]

Abstract

Cancer treatments are often more successful when the disease is detected early. We evaluated the feasibility and safety of multi-cancer blood testing coupled with PET-CT imaging to detect cancer in a prospective, interventional study of 10,006 women not previously known to have cancer. Positive blood tests were independently confirmed by a diagnostic PET-CT, which also localized the cancer. Twenty-six cancers were detected by blood testing. Of these, 15 underwent PET-CT imaging and nine (60%) were surgically excised. Twenty-four additional cancers were detected by standard-of-care screening and 46 by neither approach. 1.0% of participants underwent PET-CT imaging based on false positive blood tests, and 0.22% underwent a futile invasive diagnostic procedure. These data demonstrate that multi-cancer blood testing combined with PET-CT can be safely incorporated into routine clinical care, in some cases leading to surgery with intent to cure.

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Kelsey Bennett