Breakthrough blood test can check for eight common cancers

Australian researchers say a groundbreaking new blood test that can detect eight common types of cancer before they spread will save countless lives.

US and Aussie researchers say their "liquid biopsy", dubbed CancerSEEK, will be a game changer in the fight against cancer, and hope it could be widely available within a few years.

Colorecal, liver, lung, oesophagus, ovarian, stomach, pancreatic, and breast cancers are all detected by the test - forms of cancer that killed 25,000 people in Australia in 2017.

The study was led by a team of US researchers from Johns Hopkins University and involved 400 patients from Melbourne's Footscray Hospital.

Further study is needed before the test can be made widely available, said the report in the journal Science.

But the study, which involved 1,005 patients with pre-diagnosed cancer, detected their disease with an accuracy rate of about 70 percent overall.

Australian scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Associate Professor Jeanne Tie and Professor Peter Gibbs joined the research and they believe the test could not only be vital for middle-aged patients but for the young generation as well.

"It's also a test you would do in young people if they had a strong family history, or any other risk factor for cancer," Professor Gibbs told the ABC.

"Because it's a blood test, it's fairly simple, we could do it quite frequently... likely once every 12 months."

The test has a detection rate of 70 per cent while an extremely low rate of one per cent for false positive detection - much lower than the nine per cent of current tests available.

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The new test screens for key proteins and gene mutations that reveal the presence of cancer and is also able to pinpoint the location of the cancer in the majority of diagnoses.

Professor Gibbs was unsure how many lives the test, which is estimated to cost around $1,000 but could lower significantly in the next few years, could save but said up to 7,500 lives annually would be a realistic goal.

"If we could reduce cancer deaths by 20 to 30 per cent across those major cancers it would a really big advance," he said.

The test is now being tested on 10,000 more people and could be readily available within a few years.

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