I want to know if it is possible to detect cancer with a blood test, and how. Is there any blood test to mention in detail?
Some blood tests used to diagnose cancer include:
1. Complete blood count (CBC). This common blood test measures the amount of various types of blood cells in a sample of your blood. Blood cancers may be detected using this test if too many or too few of a type of blood cell or abnormal cells are found.
2.Blood protein testing. A test to examine various proteins in your blood (electrophoresis) can aid in detecting certain abnormal immune system proteins (immunoglobulins) that are sometimes elevated in people with multiple myeloma.
3.Tumor marker (PSA, PAP, CA125 and etc.) tests. Tumor markers are chemicals made by tumor cells that can be detected in your blood. But tumor markers are also produced by some normal cells in your body and levels may be significantly elevated in noncancerous conditions. This limits the potential for tumor marker tests to help in diagnosing cancer.
A bone marrow biopsy may help confirm a a suspected diagnosis.
The search for reliable biomarkers for early cancer detection has been of great interest for many years now. Cancer markers are not only proteins that might be produced by tumour cells but can also be receptors and hormones, or genetic molecules. A common example is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) that is measured in blood. The performance of this marker for clinical use also gives us an idea of the problems that cancer markers can have, in that it can produce false positive results or false negative results. All markers, therefore, need to be subjected to extensive testing before they can enter the clinical application arena.
There has been a lot of interest over the last decade or so in so-called heat shock proteins, which have been shown to be produced by cancer cells. Once again, testing of these is still on-going.
Although blood is the most obvious medium to analyse for cancer markers, urine may also be used and is being studied. Naturally the examination of actual tissue samples is the ultimate test, and this is also being pursued with photonic techniques.
Probably the genetic markers hold the most hope for wide spread cancer screening, but this is still some way off.
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