Cancer could be detected three years before diagnosis with experimental blood test
A new study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery and partly funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that genetic material shed by tumors can be detected in the bloodstream three years prior to a cancer diagnosis.
The researchers analyzed plasma samples from a large Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study to assess risk factors for heart attack, stroke, heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, according to a press release.
Blood samples were analyzed from 26 participants who were diagnosed with cancer within six months of sample collection, and 26 who were not diagnosed with cancer.
Out of these 52 participants, eight scored positively on a multi-cancer early detection (MCED) lab test and were diagnosed with cancer within four months following blood collection.
MCED tests are an experimental type of cancer screening that looks for signs of multiple types of cancer at the same time, according to the American Cancer Society. These signs may include pieces of DNA, RNA or proteins from abnormal cells.
For six of these eight individuals, researchers were able to assess additional blood samples that were collected 3.1 to 3.5 years prior to diagnosis.
In four samples, researchers identified tumor-derived mutations (genetic alterations within cancer cells).
Lead study author Yuxuan Wang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, shared in a statement that investigators were surprised by the outcomes.
"Three years earlier provides time for intervention," she said. "The tumors are likely to be much less advanced and more likely to be curable."
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
Senior study author Bert Vogelstein, MD, Clayton Professor of Oncology and co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins, said the study shows "the promise of MCED tests in detecting cancers very early, and sets the benchmark sensitivities required for their success."
Detecting cancer years before a clinical diagnosis could help "provide management with a more favorable outcome," noted senior author Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD, professor of oncology and Ludwig Center investigator.
"Of course, we need to determine the appropriate clinical follow-up after a positive test for such cancers," he added.
Fox News Digital reached out to Johns Hopkins for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
A cosmic murder mystery: Scientists spot supernova of star violently stripped to the bone
Israeli and American scientists have uncovered a never-before-seen type of supernova, shedding light on how stars produce and expel heavy elements like silicon and sulfur during their violent deaths. Israeli and American scientists discovered a never-before-seen type of supernova, one that blasts out heavy elements like silicon and sulfur from the body of a dying star, a new study reveals. The findings of this study were published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Nature, and provide evidence for a long theorized part of stellar anatomy. All of this was made possible by witnessing an extremely violent and unusual death of a star, the result of which allowed scientists to look deeper than ever before. Of violence and onions: The death of a star and supernovae To understand what exactly happened, it's important to understand what a supernova is and, before that, to understand what a star is. Stars are, at their core, massive and extremely hot balls of gas, specifically hydrogen and helium. These two elements are very common - in fact, they are so common that they make up almost all matter in the universe. So where does everything else come from? To oversimplify complex astrophysics and chemistry, when these hydrogen and helium come together, they can heat up and new elements can be formed - if the circumstances are right. Stars are where this happens. These giant balls of gas possess cores that are a lot more solid, specifically made of iron. The cores are active and are fueled by a process of energy production, which sees the lighter elements to form heavier ones. This is known by nuclear fusion, and it is this process that keeps the star hot, allowing gases to expand while simultaneously drawing its mass toward the core in a delicate gravitational balance. So that's how some of the heavier elements are made, but others still need more heat - hotter than what a star's core can usually handle. What's more, all those heavier elements are still stuck in the stars. How do they get out and expand into the universe, forming planets and asteroids and more? The answer is that the star has to die. When the star can no longer produce energy, it collapses in on itself. When this happens, it results in a massive explosion, one of the most powerful forces of energy in the universe - a supernova. This fuses some of those heavy elements together to make even heavier ones, and all of them get blasted out into the cosmos. This process is essential to the function of the universe, allowing everything to keep expanding and ultimately sending forth the building blocks of the universe's continued expansion. In other words, everything in the universe is made of stardust, and supernovas are what send that stardust out there to accumulate and make new things. The remnants of that progenitor star are still there, condensing together to form a neutron star or a black hole, or maybe even a diffuse nebula of sorts. So that's what scientists have already known. But there is more to this story. See, stars are a lot like onions and - they have layers. The heavier elements occupy the inner layers, getting heavier and heavier as they get closer to the iron core. The massive outer layers are where those lighter elements, like hydrogen and helium, are. But this was only a theory. Studying a supernova can be hard, as while the stars that go supernova are always 10-100 times heavier than the Sun, the explosion happens in a fraction of a second. Even still, it's possible to observe the bright light from the supernova for some time - even weeks can go by without the light fading. But until now, scientists have only ever seen the traces of light elements like hydrogen and helium, rather than anything heavier. But all of that changed with this study The now deceased star in question is SN2021yfj, a massive star far heavier than our Sun. In September 2021, the flare from its supernova was spotted by Dr. Steve Schulze, a former member of Weizmann Institute of Science's astrophysics team and now a researcher at Northwestern University. Using the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope in California, Schulze and his team did a spectral analysis. What this means is that they looked at the different colors of the flare's light. Each color represents a different element, and by observing which colors are present in its spectrum, scientists can figure out what elements are present. In other words, this is how you can use light and colors to figure out what things are made of. This isn't exactly easy, though, as intrusive obstacles can get in the way of a spectral analysis. In Schulze's case, those obstacles came in the form of clouds, stopping researchers from getting a clear enough image. But someone at the University of California, Berkeley, managed to get it. And the results were shocking. Normally, when studying a supernova, one expects to see the usual suspects of light and abundant elements, like helium, carbon, oxygen, and so on. But that's not what they found. Instead, the light fired out by SN2021yfj with its dying breaths consisted largely of sulfur, silicon, and argon. That's not supposed to happen. So how could the supernova just not have the lighter elements, and instead have the far heavier ones? A cosmic murder mystery: How a star was stripped to its core before death by explosion The conclusion Schulze came to was that something went wrong. Massive stars like SN2021yfj are, as mentioned previously, like onions - they have layers. And some of those layers have been peeled off. This itself isn't unheard of. Stripped stars, as they are known, have been seen before. But those usually have layers made of helium, carbon, or oxygen - exposed when the outermost hydrogen layers were lost somehow. But SN2021yfj must have had even those layers stripped away. That's not like just peeling a few layers off an onion. Rather, it's more like stripping it to the bone - and that's the part that's unheard of. 'This star lost most of the material that it produced throughout its lifetime,' Schulze said in a statement. 'So we could only see the material formed during the months right before its explosion. Something very violent must have happened to cause that.' This is not a thing that should happen. As noted by Weizmann's Dr. Ofer Yaron, a leading expert on supernovae, this level of deep exposure is a major challenge to prevailing theories on how these layers fall away. Something happened that caused this star to die like this. But what? Several theories were put forward. A companion star could have theoretically exerted force that caused the layers to be stripped away. Another explosion or strong stellar winds could have been the culprit. But the main suspect is actually SN2021yfj itself. The star's core likely produced so much heat that the nuclear fusion caused an incredibly powerful burst of energy. This then may have caused the star's layers to be blown apart, sending the outer layers away. This, essentially, means that SN2021yfj ripped itself apart. But this may have happened before. In fact, the shed layers may have collided into one another, or into another layer that had been blown out a previous time, and that resulted in another explosion. But how much does this factor into the death of SN2021yfj? That, currently, is still a mystery. But what is sure is that no one has ever had the chance to look at stellar anatomy this closely, going deeper than anyone has gone before. 'It's always surprising – and deeply satisfying – to discover a completely new kind of physical phenomenon,' said Prof. Avishay Gal-Yam, whose research group in Weizmann's Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department focuses on understanding how the elements are formed in the universe. 'As soon as I saw the data Dr. Schulze sent me, it was obvious we were witnessing something no one had ever seen before. 'Once we identified the spectral signatures of silicon, sulfur, and argon, it was clear this was a major step forward: Peering into the depths of a giant star helps us understand where the heavy elements come from. Every atom in our bodies and in the world around us was created somewhere in the universe and went through countless transformations over billions of years before arriving at its current place, so tracing its origin and the process that created it is incredibly difficult. Now it appears that the inner layers of giant stars are production sites for some of these important, relatively heavy elements.'
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
"That Makes Perfect Sense": Fox News Just Got RFK Jr. To Reveal The "Convenient" Reason He Works Out In Jeans
Fox News' Jesse Watters hit Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with what he described as 'the question that everybody is wondering about' on Tuesday. Namely, 'Why do you wear jeans when you work out?' Related: Kennedy, known for exercising in his literal (denim) sweatpants, answered: 'Well, I just started doing that a long time ago because I would go hiking in the morning and then I'd go straight to the gym and I found it was convenient and now I'm used to it so I just do it.' Related: 'OK,' the Fox News host replied to the vaccine skeptic that President Donald Trump has entrusted with his 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda. Related: 'There were a lot of theories, but that makes perfect sense,' Watters claimed, without offering to explain the sense he claimed there was. Watch here: Fox News/X / Via Related: The question came after Kennedy and Fox News personality-turned-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth challenged Americans to do 50 pullups and 100 pushups in under five minutes. Watch that clip here: @FoxNews/X / Via This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
a minute ago
- Yahoo
Feds direct Pennsylvania and other states to check immigration status of their Medicaid enrollees
Priscilla Luna holds her 3 year-old daughter Avery Dahl, while she gets the MMR vaccine from Raynard Covarrubio at a vaccine clinic put on by Lubbock Public Health Department on March 1, 2025 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by) This week, the Trump administration's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an effort to check the immigration status of people who get their health insurance through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Medicaid is the public health insurance program for people with low incomes that's jointly funded by states and the federal government. For families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, CHIP is a public program that provides low-cost health coverage for their children. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The feds will begin sending Pennsylvania and other states monthly enrollment reports that identify people with Medicaid or CHIP whose immigration or citizenship status can't be confirmed through federal databases. States are then responsible for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals in those reports. States are expected to take 'appropriate actions when necessary, including adjusting coverage or enforcing non-citizen eligibility rules,' according to a CMS press release. 'We are tightening oversight of enrollment to safeguard taxpayer dollars and guarantee that these vital programs serve only those who are truly eligible under the law,' Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees CMS as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press release announcing the new program. As of April, roughly 71 million adults and children nationwide have Medicaid coverage, while another 7 million children have insurance through CHIP. Immigrants under age 65 are less likely to be covered by Medicaid than U.S.-born citizens, according to an analysis from health research organization KFF. States scramble to shield hospitals from GOP Medicaid cuts Immigrants who are in the country illegally aren't eligible for federally funded Medicaid and CHIP. Only citizens and certain lawfully present immigrants — green card holders and refugees, for example — can qualify. But some states have chosen to expand Medicaid coverage for immigrants with their own funds. Pennsylvania and 22 other states offer pregnancy-related care regardless of citizenship or immigration status, according to KFF. Fourteen states provide coverage for children in low-income families regardless of immigration status, while seven states offer coverage to some adults regardless of status. The tax and spending package President Donald Trump last month cuts federal spending on Medicaid by more than $1 trillion, leaving states to either make up the difference with their own funds or reduce coverage. But the new law also includes restrictions on coverage for certain immigrants, including stripping eligibility from refugees and asylum-seekers. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@ Solve the daily Crossword
