A group of scientists from University of California works to identify any type of cancer, long before symptoms appear, with a simple blood test. This opens up hope for the possibility of early disease detection a situation that is always vital in order to face the disease and be able to overcome it. It’s not a cure, but it’s an early warning. A kind of life insurance for patients.
The key, again, is in a protein. In this case, it is released by a gene called KRAS in the early stages of the disease. This gene mutates more frequently in certain tumors such as the lungs, intestines and pancreas, precisely those whose aggressiveness and mortality are the highest.
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How does the analysis work? The test is simple. blood is drawn to look for chemical changes caused by tumors and seeping into the bloodstream. Once detected, it allows to face the disease in time to decide how to deal with it.
The head of the study published in the journal “Cell Reports”, Daniel Kimfrom the University of California, indicated that “The earlier you detect that a person has cancer, the more likely they are to survive. through treatment and surgery.
“Millions of people die of cancer every year around the world, and there is an urgent need to develop highly sensitive and specific diagnostic tests which allow early detection of cancer before it spreads to other parts of the body.
The KRAS gene regulates RNA (ribonucleic acid), which are the molecules that decipher the instructions in our DNA.
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laboratory experiments discovered that carcinogenic variants they activate others by mistake, which can be detected in the blood by sequencing or mapping.
Kim considers it a very promising tool for diagnosing cancer in its early stages. The test is performed with a minimally invasive technique called “liquid biopsy” instead of traditional surgery to remove tumor tissue.
Some tumors release DNA into the blood long before a person begins to experience symptoms. Scientists also looked at how genes are turned on or off without changing the DNA sequence. Further tests have identified which RNA are packed into extracellular vesicles and preferentially secreted by cancer cells affected by the KRAS gene mutation.
Romain Reggiardo, Kim’s collaborator in the investigation explained that “We were in a multidisciplinary environment that really made us approach RNA from different prisms.” Once the chemical reaction produced by the tumor and transmitted to the blood has been identified, it remains to carry out a test with real patients. In this case, they will analyze blood samples from lung cancer patients and try to develop a test with biomarkers able to detect these changes that allow early diagnosis of the disease.
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For Kim, this breakthrough is very important: “Now that we know the RNA signatures of this very early cancer event, it will help us develop new methods for early detection, which will hopefully help save the lives of many people. people in the future. “future”.
Obtaining a unique tool to detect cancer before it manifests is considered by scientists to be the “holy grail” of cancer research. And this would make it possible to anticipate the most aggressive cancers or the most difficult to diagnose early, such as those of the intestine, lung, pancreas, throat and ovaries.
Cancer figures in Spain
In Spain, cancer is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality. The number of cancers diagnosed this year will reach the 280,100 cases according to the calculations of redecan, which represents a slight increase over previous years. Just as an increase in the incidence of cancer is expected worldwide, in Spain it is estimated that in 2040 the incidence reaches 341,000 cases.
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However, just like globally, the reality of 2022 may be slightly different, since this estimate does not include the possible effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. As incidence estimates are made from projections made with data from previous years, the incidence estimates presented in Spain Cancer Figures 2020 most likely did not correspond to what was ultimately the reality.
For example, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cancer screening programs have been more or less affected, so in all likelihood, the number of colorectal and breast cancers finally diagnosed in 2020 was lower than expected. Similarly, it is unclear how all of this affected the number of cancer diagnoses in 2021 and how it will affect 2022. So, The incidence estimates presented in this publication should be understood as the incidence that would have occurred this year 2022 if there had not been factors that have altered or are still altering the diagnostic possibilities of the health system.