A blood test to detect breast cancer

Australian and French scientists are developing a new potential way to detect and monitor breast cancer that could involve a simple blood test.

Professor Guillaume Tcherkez, from The Australian National University (ANU), said he and his colleagues have “discovered a new way of detecting breast cancer in the first instance, as well as ongoing monitoring”. He said a blood test would complement today’s detection tools for breast cancer, including mammograms, and could corroborate results from a biopsy.

Dr Illa Tea, from ANU and the University of Nantes, France, said the concept for the new detection tool was based on research published in Scientific Reports. She explained, “Our research shows the presence of isotopes carbon-13 and nitrogen-15 in certain proportions in a tissue sample can reveal whether the tissue is healthy or cancerous.”

The research team analysed biopsy samples from healthy people and cancer patients from Pays de la Loire in Western France, as well as different lines of cancer cells in culture. According to Dr Tea, “We could develop clinical applications from this research to detect a change in the isotopic proportions in compounds present in blood that may indicate the presence of cancer.”