NHS trials ‘sponge on a string’ test for risk signs of oesophageal cancer

A patient at the Lister hospital in Stevenage undergoing the ‘sponge on a string’ test. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

The NHS is to offer a 10-minute “sponge on a string” test to 120,000 patients with heartburn in a trial to see if it should be used to screen millions of people for one of the world’s deadliest cancers.

Patients swallow a soluble pill attached to a thread which, when washed down with a glass of water, releases a sponge the size of a 50p coin to collect cells from the oesophagus as it is retrieved.