Early warning blood test for leukaemia

A BREAKTHROUGH blood test could detect leukaemia more than a decade before it strikes. Scientists have discovered genetic mutations that appear well before the first signs of leukaemia – typically tiredness, bruising and infections.

Using blood samples from 800 adults, they were able to predict almost 40 per cent of those who would develop the most common acute myeloid form of the disease.

It was able to spot the illness up to 14 years before diagnosis. It is hoped the simple test could be available in five years, allowing doctors to start chemotherapy earlier in patients whose survival chances can be very low.

To find warning signs of the blood cancer, researchers carried out genetic sequencing and found several mutations that make blood stem cells behave abnormally. This was linked to a tendency to develop leukaemia.

The study, involving the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, was led by the University Health Network in Canada and published in Nature.