
Scientists develop 10-minute universal cancer test - katiey
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/04/scientists-develop-10-minute-universal-cancer-test
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evandijk70
Journal article:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07214-w](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07214-w)

Interesting article, but as usual the popular scientific article oversells the
research. I read through the research article briefly and already noticed.

\- The assay relies on methylation, which is cancer-type specific. The authors
have tested samples from colorectal cancer and breast cancer, which are
relatively similar on a molecular level.

\- No comparison of the accuracy of the test is made to other techniques to
detect cancer from circulating DNA, like ddPCR and cancer-SEEK.

\- No mention is made of the stage of cancer for the samples they tested. It
is easier to detect late-stage cancer, but patients with late-stage cancer may
already have symptoms. Moreover, late stage cancers can also be found through
imaging.

\- Related to the previous point: the method could not detect tumor DNA after
it was diluted to 1%. This may hamper the applicability to early detection of
cancer in blood samples.

