Game changer test for breast cancer
A GAME-changing blood test that could detect when breast cancer returns may help women get treated quickly before the disease spreads and save lives.
Garvan Institute researcher Clare Stirzaker has identified 30 DNA biomarkers in the blood linked to breast cancer and is working to turn the knowledge into a blood test that can be run overnight.
In less than 10 years – and for less than $100 – she hopes those with histories of breast
cancer will be able to take regular blood tests to check whether their cancer has returned.
While most patients respond well to initial treatment, the disease returns in about 16 per cent of women, and there are no reliable or sensitive tests to identify relapses early.
The research is one of 20 projects to share in $12.4m in National Breast Cancer Foundation funding.
Professor Stirzaker will use the funding to develop a smaller panel of DNA markers for breast cancer and reduce the time it takes to do
the test from about a week to less than a day.
“It’s a much easier way to monitor people rather than having to do a tumour biopsy, for instance, which is much more invasive,” she said.
The test was not yet sensitive enough to detect early stage breast cancer, which did not shed enough DNA, so mammograms would still be needed, she said.
National Breast Cancer Foundation chief executive Cleola Anderiesz said the five-year survival rates for breast cancer were “much higher if you detect the cancer early and you treat it early”.
“The ability to pick up that recurrence of cancer early (using a blood test) offers that opportunity to provide the earlier therapeutic intervention and hopefully increase their chance of survival,” Professor Anderiesz said.
For Jo Fernandes, a blood test that could tell her breast cancer had returned might have saved her from four gruelling months of chemotherapy.
The 47-year-old psychologist first developed breast cancer in 2014 when her son was 18 months old and she was just 39.
When her doctor began talking about what treatments she would need, “all I could see was my little baby boy on the floor playing with his Matchbox cars … while I’m being told I’ve got cancer”, she said.
She had surgery and radiotherapy and “life was sweet again” especially after she gave birth to a miracle baby girl at age 42.
But in 2017 her cancer returned.
“Now that research is looking into a blood test to detect cancer early, I think wow that could be a huge game changer for some people,” she said.