Blood test can highlight prostate cancer danger

A simple blood test has been developed that detects aggressive prostate cancer by identifying rare free-ranging tumour cells.

The cells can flag up patients who have a 10-fold increased risk of dying from their disease, allowing targeted treatments to be delivered as quickly as possible. The new test, described in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, is said to identify two specific types of circulating tumour cell (CTC) linked to metastasis and poor patient survival.