Blood test that reveals best personal breast cancer care

WOMEN with advanced breast cancer may be a step closer to an NHS blood test that tells them which personalised treatment they need.

There are around 35,000 women in the UK with advanced breast cancer which has come back after treatment or spread. Girls Aloud’s singer Sarah Harding recently said she is one of them.

Around half of these women have different genetic mutations which fuel their tumours and could be stopped in their tracks with the right drugs.

Now the largest study to look at blood tests called liquid biopsies has found they correctly picked up 93 per cent of patients with genetic mutations. Experts say that accuracy shows the technology is close to ready for the NHS to use.

Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust took blood tests from 1,044 breast cancer patients, of whom 533 were found to have genetic mutations.

They were split into four groups, based on the genetic type of cancer they had, and given the drug thought best to treat them.

The results, in the journal Lancet Oncology, show that for two groups nine out of 38 saw their tumour shrink or stop growing.

This gave them up to seven and a half months of life on average without their cancer getting worse. Professor Paul Workman, of the Institute of Cancer Research, said the findings should lead to liquid biopsies being ‘a standard part of patient care and help accelerate women’s access to the best available precision medicines.’