Forbes (8/7/19) reported that there is a way to find breast cancer cells in a woman’s blood stream. “The test called ‘TARDIS’ (TArgeted DIgital Sequencing) has been suggested to be up to 100 times more sensitive than other existing blood-based cancer monitoring tests.” The new test “works by looking for tiny fragments of DNA which come from a patients tumor, but are found in the bloodstream called ‘circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA),’ and has been described to pick up as little as 2 parts of ctDNA in 100,000.”
Most women with breast cancer have been diagnosed in the early stage, jut by getting their mammograms. Early detection is so important the treatments are both less rigorous and more effective. But there are those who either aren’t found at all, or not in an early stage in spite of mammograms,
Having new tests for this is important, this technology of the liquid biopsy has not been studied as a screening test which would be used in women not previously diagnosed, however, there are studies looking for such a test.
The newer Galleri test is a multi-cancer early detection blood test (MCED) that can screen for over 50 types of cancer by looking at abnormal types of cell free DNA floating in blood. The more advanced a cancer is, the more accurate Galleri is. For breast cancer specifically, there for do not avoid indicated mammograms.
