
Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood - hospes
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/25/business/corporate-business/toshiba-test-cancer-blood/
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pkaye
Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is
not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can
improve on it.

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BiteCode_dev
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen
the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice
already.

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_Microft
No, not necessarily. Check out these numbers:

Sensitivity is what fraction of the affected people are actually found. Here:
90%, so 10% are missed.

Specificity is what fraction of the unaffected people are detected as such.
Here: 95%, so 5% wrongly detected ("false positives").

In Europe, there are 60 cases of lung cancer per 100 000 people.

That makes 54 correctly detected per 100 000, missing 6 cases. That also means
5000 people _incorrectly_ suspected of lung cancer (5% of 100 000).

Update: using the accuracy from the article itself, we would still get a total
of 1000 of false negatives (affected but not detected) and false positives
(unaffected but suspected). Incidence is still 60/100 000.

~~~
refurb
Yup. And some of those follow on tests could be quite invasive and risky in
their own right. With that kind of false positive rate, you'd be risking the
life of a not insignificant number of people.

Either that or driving up healthcare costs significantly as those 5000 people
are going to need an MRI or CAT scan or something else to rule out cancer.

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nugget
What follow on test for suspected lung cancer would risk the life of a not
insignificant number of people?

An MRI without contrast has no impact. An MRI with contrast has relatively
little impact. A biopsy would only be done if the MRI with contrast lit up
areas of concern. At the point a PET is ordered, you have narrowed the false
positive pool substantially and probably want the scan no matter what.

~~~
robbiep
Quite rare to jump straight to an MRI - a chest MRI is a half hour deal. More
common to do a CT Chest which has a 1:500 risk of causing cancer

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maneesh
Does this mean that out of the 5000 false positives, 10 people will actually
GET cancer by doing a follow-up CT exam?

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pmiller2
We don't really know. Data that show X dose of radiation increases the
probability of developing cancer by Y% is based on studies on survivors of
atomic blasts. The number of people exposed to an amount of radiation
equivalent to a handful of CT scans is pretty small relative to the effect
size that's claimed, so there is reason to be skeptical.

See [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-ct-
scans...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-ct-scans-
increase-risk-cancer/) for a jumping off point into this type of research.

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pen2l
Here's one paper I've found by quoted researcher, which I think is kind of
relevant to the device/what this article is about:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30734558](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30734558)

I think they are creating microfluidic chips that analyze miRNAs. So, I
imagine it's an orchestra of pumps, valves, etc pushing very very small
amounts of liquid around and using an array of techniques to detect things,
all dictated by microcontrollers. It's as interdisciplinary as you can get!

It should be noted that these papers are actually in great abundance, when I
get happy is when a big company (e.g. Toshiba or Olympus) takes over because
it means a return is to be made, i.e. they're going to pay for the patents and
finally bring academic papers to fruition, and putting their weight behind it,
probably make it work to solve problems like "cancer" (by detecting it super-
early, making it easier to take out).

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gewa
That’s the important point here. RNA analysis by chips or sequencing is
nothing new. But there’s always a long way from the lab to the clinic, and its
capital intensive to fund a startup in this field.

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buboard
They should name it Notheranos

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saas_sam
Therayes

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dannykwells
Not even in trials yet. GRAIL is running a 100K person trial, to read out next
year. Also, not one paper showing this kind of prediction in the clinic, which
GRAIL, freenome, Guardant etc all have.

No meaningful papers published + huge claims +single drop of blood =
TheranosII

~~~
drderidder
Don't confuse a US-centric view of medical technology development, western
medical journals, US trials etc with something developed in Japan. This is
Toshiba, working with the (Japanese) National Cancer Center Research Institute
and you can be sure there's extensive research behind it, even if it's in
Japanese.

~~~
ak217
Can you please post links to the research that you mention?

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feikname
"Planned for details of the technology will be announced at the "42nd Japan
Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology Society[5]" to be held in Fukuoka on
December 3 to 8 days."[0][1]

[0]
[https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1220546.html](https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1220546.html)

The overview can be read in the following links: (all in japanese):

Toshiba announcement[1], National Cancer Center Japan[2][3], Nedo[4]

[1]
[https://www.toshiba.co.jp/rdc/detail/1911_06.htm](https://www.toshiba.co.jp/rdc/detail/1911_06.htm)

[2]
[https://www.ncc.go.jp/jp/information/pr_release/2014/0613/in...](https://www.ncc.go.jp/jp/information/pr_release/2014/0613/index.html)

[3]
[https://www.ncc.go.jp/jp/information/pr_release/2014/0613/pr...](https://www.ncc.go.jp/jp/information/pr_release/2014/0613/press_release_20140613.pdf)

[4]
[https://www.nedo.go.jp/news/press/AA5_100275.html](https://www.nedo.go.jp/news/press/AA5_100275.html)

[5] [https://www2.aeplan.co.jp/mbsj2019/](https://www2.aeplan.co.jp/mbsj2019/)

Also, here's the information regarding the project's funding and about the
objective: [https://research-er.jp/projects/view/920250](https://research-
er.jp/projects/view/920250) and
[https://www.nedo.go.jp/activities/ZZJP_100082.html](https://www.nedo.go.jp/activities/ZZJP_100082.html)

~~~
ak217
Thanks. None of these are peer-reviewed articles or scientific conference
presentations (although it will be great to see what comes out of the
meeting).

The original poster was pointing out that this is, so far, vaporware because
Toshiba has not presented any actual scientific results, unlike Grail,
Guardiant and others. Everything seen on this so far is just marketing (all of
the scientific literature links on Toshiba's website are to cancer
epidemiology surveys, not articles about this technology). The parent poster
has yet to back up their assertion that there is "extensive research" behind
it. I've been unable to find any publications or patent applications on this,
so I'm very interested if someone has links.

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stonewhite
A future iteration of this product should be a household item that you use it
during your morning routine, even before brushing your teeth. Preventative
measures like this should be more widely available and built into peoples
everyday routines.

~~~
Gatsky
Ah, we are getting ahead of ourselves. This isn't a preventative measure. It
is a diagnostic device. The distinction is important because what will become
increasingly apparent is we don't have good tools to deal with cancer when it
is detected very early. One of the major problems is working out which of
these 'detection events' is going to progress into clinically meaningful
disease. We can't just take out (or even biopsy) the prostate of everyone with
a hit.

~~~
mschuster91
At early stages you can simply blast it with chemo/radiation before it
manifests into something intreatable though.

~~~
neuronic
If you are certain that it is malignant cancer and not one of the other
billion tumor forms that may not even spread.

Otherwise, you are exposing people to side effects of radiation and
chemotherapy without them needing it.

This is called overtreatment and sought to be avoided for a reason.

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earlbellinger
This is very exciting. I worked on these kinds of technologies a bit in
graduate school (before switching gears completely and getting a PhD in
astrophysics). In the coming decades, we will be able to detect who is on the
path to disease before they ever begin showing any symptoms at all. Granted,
curing these diseases post-detection is a whole different matter.

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PeterisP
It's kind of what Theranos promised but didn't deliver?

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phire
I don't think so.

Theranos wanted to do any and all blood tests from a single drop of blood.
Toshiba is limiting themselves to just a single kind of test, which I'm
guessing the science agrees is possible with such a small blood sample.

~~~
kasabali
That's a good start. If they'd be able to do 13 tests from a drop of blood
from each of my fingers that'd be 130 tests!

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projektfu
Ouch. Give me a needle please.

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beenBoutIT
The finger prick is an interesting non-sexual way to positively identify
masochists. Everything about the finger prick takes away control while
maximizing pain. A nurse can't/won't give you an arm jab until you relax your
arm but they'll detonate a finger jabber randomly with an audible 'snap' while
you're helplessly watching it all happen in front of you.

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tidenly
I haven't laughed at a post this hard in ages. thanks.

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OliverJones
This kind of device should join perpetual motion machines on the very short
list in patent law where a working model is required as part of the patent
application.

In its favor is the fact that no Toshiba executive will be able to distract
VCs and senior statesmen the way the top Theranos executive could.

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new299
A number of companies are working on cfDNA (cell free DNA) approaches to early
cancer detection. GRAIL and Freenome are probably notable examples.

Far fewer seem to be looking at miRNA, as Toshiba are here. I know of one
other in Japan with a novel approach. If any Bioinformatics people would be
interested email me and I’ll introduce them, they’re hiring.

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mrinterweb
This is great. I hope this kind of screening tech, like this, becomes
commonplace and highly available. Early detection could save many lives and
greatly reduce later stage treatment costs.

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tempsolution
Wow maybe Toshiba is able to do what Theranos failed to do. And of course with
their failure rate, they can bring up healthcare costs as well. Win win for
everyone... _cough_

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s_m
No mention of "Theranos" even once in that article.

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pbreit
Does this suggest Theranos could have been viable?

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mchen076
Not even remotely. These are testing for massively different things via
entirely different processes.

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leog0esger
This sounds very familiar and fishy...
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blood:_Secrets_and_Lies_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blood:_Secrets_and_Lies_in_a_Silicon_Valley_Startup)

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euske
It bothers me that their control screen looks like Windows XP.

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sidpatil
That's because it _is_ Windows XP.

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zcrackerz
Most likely some form of Windows CE, but close enough.

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13hunteo
Sounds familiar...

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teknologist
It looks like it's running Windows XP.

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dafty4
Where is the photo of the founder wearing a black turtleneck? I won't believe
the results until I see that.

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xivzgrev
THERANOS IS BACK!

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rco8786
Well this sounds familiar

