On the horizon

From the cutting edge to you, these breakthrough treatments will soon be available:

Breath tests

Your body makes different gases when you have cancer. “Though they can’t be picked up by the human nose, these smells can be detected by special machines called e-noses,” Dr Mann says. The PAN cancer trials in the UK have already tracked the specific gases that signal cancer of the oesophagus and stomach. Next up, they’re checking for “scent signatures” indicating kidney, bladder, liver and pancreatic cancers. When can you expect them? Within five to seven years.

Immune cell transplants In 2018, scientists realised that immune cells from a stranger can be transplanted into your body and you won’t reject them. Patients will start receiving this new treatment next year in the US, where “immune banks” are being set up to store cancer-fighting T cells.

Liquid biopsies Methods that analyse fluids from crime scenes are now being used to pick up cancer clues in blood and urine. One example called CancerSEEK will hopefully be on offer by 2025. It picks up very early-stage cancer of eight different types, including cancer of the ovaries, breast and bowel. “Just like finding a needle in a haystack, it can detect one mutated fragment of DNA amongst 10,000 normal fragments,” says Professor Peter Gibbs, from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, in Melbourne, which has helped develop the test.

Tumour-blitzing bots

When these injectable teensie nanorobots detect a protein only found in cancer growths, they lock in on their target. “They then release a drug that dissolves the blood vessels feeding the cancer, so it’s starved of nutrients and stops growing and spreading,” says Professor Greg Anderson, from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, which developed the bots. In mice, the bots have stopped the spread of both breast cancer and melanoma. If current human trials get the thumbs up, they should be an option in less than 10 years.