The UK’s NHS has announced it will begin a pilot scheme of a blood test that uses machine learning (ML) to detect more than 50 types of cancer – including ovarian, pancreatic, oesophageal, bowel and lung cancers – before clinical signs or symptoms emerge.
According to a paper published in the Annals of Oncology, the test, created by the Californian company GRAIL, accurately detected cancer by using the ML algorithm to examine cell-free DNA (cfDNA) that leaks from tumors into the bloodstream. It also predicted with a high degree of accuracy where the cancer was located.
“Finding cancer early, when treatment is more likely to be successful, is one of the most significant opportunities we have to reduce the burden of cancer,” said the paper’s first author, Dr Eric Klein, chairman of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States.
NHS England will pilot Galleri from mid-2021 with 165,000 people. Participants will predominantly be 50-79 year olds with no symptoms who will take annual blood tests. If the pilot proves successful, it will be expanded to one million participants across 2024 and 2025.
Nearly 200,000 people die from cancer in the UK each year and over a thousand people are diagnosed every day.
For the test, dubbed Galleri, genomic sequencing is used to detect certain chemical changes to the DNA.
“We believe that cancers that shed more cfDNA into the bloodstream are detected more easily,” explained Klein. “These cancers are also more likely to be lethal, and prior research shows that this multi-cancer early detection test more strongly detects these cancer types. Cancers such as prostate shed less DNA than other tumours, which is why existing screening tests are still important for these cancers.”
Test results would be available within ten working days, the company said.
“Galleri, a simple blood test that’s capable of detecting more than 50 cancers, is a ground-breaking and potentially life-saving advance that could have a tremendous human and economic benefit,” said Sir Harpal Kumar, president of GRAIL Europe. “Grail is thrilled to partner with the NHS and UK government to support the NHS Long Term Plan for earlier cancer diagnosis, and we are eager to bring our technology to patients in the UK as quickly as we can.”
The paper examined the performance of the test in 2,823 people with cancer, and 1,254 people without. It identified when cancer was present 51.5 per cent of the time, and wrongly detected it in 0.5 per cent of cases.
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