Proteins in blood could signal cancer years before diagnosis

Amid news that cancer rates are on the rise in young adults, new research suggests proteins in the blood can indicate the presence of cancer more than seven years before it is diagnosed.

Using blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the UK, scientists at the University of Oxford, compared the proteins of participants who did and did not go on to receive a cancer diagnosis. Through this comparison, scientists identified 618 proteins linked to 19 types of cancer, including colon, lung, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and liver.

The study’s authors surmise that some of these proteins could be used to prevent and identify cancer much earlier and provide new treatment options.

Research revealed 107 proteins associated with cancer risk, many of which were detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis.

A senior nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Oxford and co-author of the study Keren Papier, Ph.D., reports, “To save more lives from cancer, we need to better understand what happens at the earliest stages of the disease … [and] how the proteins in our blood can affect our risk of cancer. Now we need to study these proteins in depth to see which ones could be reliably used for prevention.”

A second study, which analyzed genetic data from 300,000 cancer patients, found 40 proteins in the blood that directly influenced an individual’s risk of developing nine types of cancer. Scientists note that altering these proteins could potentially increase or decrease the odds of someone developing certain cancers, but this alteration could also cause unwanted side effects.

Mark Lawler, the chair in translational cancer genomics at Queen’s University Belfast, notes the importance of prevention: “The data are impressive — finding evidence of cancer before it has manifested itself clinically, provides a critical window of opportunity to treat with a greater chance for success, or even more importantly to achieve the holy grail of preventing cancer before it can even occur.”

In a boon to prevention and early detection, this promising study comes on the heels of research that suggests a simple swish and spit test could lead to an early diagnosis of gastric cancer.