A blood test which can detect 50 cancers before symptoms start to show could be offered to a million people in a pilot programme from next summer, according to the head of the NHS.
Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said the Galleri test has the potential to “transform cancer care forever”, according to reports.
The liquid biopsy detects tiny fragments of tumour DNA in the bloodstream and alerts doctors as to whether a cancer signal has been detected and predicts where in the body that signal may have originated.
If early results are successful, a pilot screening programme involving one million patients over two years is scheduled to begin next summer.
The test is expected to find 5,000 potential cases of the disease every year.
The Galleri test is being given to 142,000 people without symptoms across England and will report its results in April.
According to the Times, a researcher involved in the NHS trial told a conference of health service leaders in Manchester that the tests could eventually be carried out by people in their own homes.
Pritchard reportedly told the NHS Confed Expo conference: “Our pioneering NHS Galleri trial, now in its second year, is the first step in testing a new way to identify cancers before symptoms appear.
“If provisional results prove successful, we will be rolling out the test to an extra one million people across the country from next summer, with the aim of diagnosing thousands more people with cancer at an earlier stage.
“Lives are saved when cancers are caught early and this test has the potential to transform cancer care forever — especially for the types that often don’t show symptoms until a later stage, when they can be much harder to treat.”
Gillian Rosenberg, innovation lead on NHS England’s national cancer programme, told the conference they were speaking to the national screening committee and would like to expand testing if the early results were successful.
She added they expected “about 5,000” positive referrals in each year of the pilot programme.
This month, a separate study published at the world’s largest cancer conference in the US suggested the Galleri blood test, made by the California company Grail, could help speed up diagnosis and fast-track patients for treatment.
Results from the much smaller NHS suggested it has the potential to spot and rule out cancer in people with symptoms.
Experts at the conference had welcomed the findings but said more research would be needed before the test could be rolled out in healthcare systems.
The Symplify study, led by the University of Oxford, involved 5,461 people in England and Wales who were referred to hospital by their GP with suspected cancer.
The test correctly revealed two-thirds of cancers among those in the study. In 85% of those positive cases, it was also able to pinpoint the original site of cancer. It was more accurate in older patients and those with more advanced cancers, according to the trial results.
The results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago.
