Detecting breast cancer in a blood test

Researchers from McGill University's Faculty of Medicine, lead by Dr David Junker, may be onto something: "detecting breast cancer's fingerprint in a droplet of blood" http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/news/item/?item_id=215936.  Imagine a routine of analyzing a drop of blood, like a diabetic checking her sugar, to see if you have breast cancer.  


We have known for many years that tumors make proteins.  You may have heard of CEA, CA15-3 or CA27-29, but they have not proven to be reliable indicators because of a wide range of "normal" levels.  There may be person to person "normal" variation and non-cancer lifestyle differences that may influence the levels in one person over time.


Their research has attempted to find reliable biomarkers by testing an array of proteins and they found a way to do so with a droplet of blood in microfluidics.  Essentially, the technique involves very tiny channels and small (nano liters) of serum, reagents and analytes on something like a tiny glass slide, almost like a computer chip.  With this new technology and using a new approach, they can test many protein biomarkers simultaneously and reliably.


They report on blood samples of 32 proteins from healthy controls and women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.  They found that 6 of these proteins could differentiate those with cancer from those without.  They call it "breast cancer's fingerprint".


More testing needs to be done and results confirmed, but imagine a breast cancer "finger stick"!  And then the mammogram and ultrasound would be used to find what is known to be there.  No more screening imaging!


Wow!  What a radical change from what we do now to screen for breast cancer!
Mammograms are still the gold standard today and we will spend all next week discussing how the screening mammogram saves lives and how listening to the news media reports about them may be harmful to your health!




Together we can prevent 75,000 breast cancer cases each year!