Cancer screening methods are complex, expensive and time-consuming to obtain a final result, whether it is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan or preparation for a colonoscopy, as are the medical practices and procedures associated with these more advanced diagnostic examinations. Methods: Patients often have to give up work completely and suffer from anxiety and psychological stress while waiting for the results.
Many detection methods target only a specific organ in the body, making it difficult to perform a quick and comprehensive examination of the patient's body.
In this regard, he highlighted a test invented in Shanghai that makes simultaneous detection of cancer in multiple organs of the body a quick, simple and comprehensive process. The test uses just a drop of dried blood to look for biomarkers that typically indicate cancer in the pancreas, stomach and colon.
Although the test is still in its early stages, early studies suggest it could prevent deadly cancer that is often discovered too late. This is believed to be largely due to the supercomputer that helped researchers in Shanghai develop the new test, and it is expected that researchers will use artificial intelligence technology in the future to obtain more accurate results.
According to research published in several specialized medical websites, this approach aims to search for metabolites, or metabolites as they are scientifically called, which are by-products of cellular metabolism. These products - including: alanine, lysine, arginine, glucose, and sugar - are present in high concentrations. Different, even in the blood of healthy people.
Since cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth and random spread, when cancer occurs, major changes in cell metabolism inevitably occur, leading to a significant increase in the proportion of some byproducts, which is what happens in cancers. For example: pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer, colon cancer, rectal cancer.
The new test first takes a drop of blood from a patient, dries it with a cotton swab, and then uses nanoparticle-enhanced laser desorption and ion mass spectrometry to estimate the concentration or abundance of a given metabolite. In some cases, the simultaneous presence of several metabolites indicates a possible cancer risk.
The new test was shown to have an accuracy of 81.2% in patients with pancreatic cancer, and researchers estimate that, thanks to early detection, it could reduce undiagnosed cases of pancreatic, stomach and colon cancer by 20.35% to 55.10%.
Because the test does not require particularly sophisticated equipment, it can be used in areas where there are no special medical facilities. This can also be done in primary care centres, eliminating the need to wait months for an appointment at a specialist clinic.
Although getting tested quickly and easily can improve patients' lives and reduce the anxiety of waiting for results, we are unlikely to see it in everyday health care delivery any time soon.