China News Service, July 22 (Reporter Chen Jing) Non-invasive blood testing can detect cancer four years earlier than routine diagnosis-this is true.

  Fudan University disclosed on the 22nd that a research team led by young researcher Chen Xingdong and others from the Taizhou Institute of Health Sciences and the Institute of Human Phenotype Group found that for colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer, liver cancer, lung cancer and gastric cancer, five common malignant tumors, The early cancer signal-trace tumor methylation exists in the blood circulation and can be detected non-invasively.

  "Nature Communications" just published the results of this research. This latest research result confirms that by improving the sensitivity of detection technology, tumor markers can be found earlier, so as to achieve effective early cancer screening, which has important scientific research and health significance.

  At present, the incidence and mortality of malignant tumors are increasing year by year, and they have become one of the main disease burdens of humans in the world. The 5-year survival rate of patients with early-stage tumors can reach 91%, and the average 5-year survival rate of advanced-stage tumors is only 26% because they cannot be removed by surgery and lack effective treatment options. Chen Xingdong said that realizing "early detection" of tumors can help patients gain treatment time and effectively increase the cure rate.

  The scholar told reporters that to verify and research early tumor detection and screening, not only high-efficiency and sensitive technology is needed, but more importantly, blood and biological samples must be sampled before the diagnosis of tumor patients. This requires large-scale, long-term research activities to support the researcher's exploratory activities

  Chen Xingdong’s team discovered that cancer signals exist in the blood early in the development of the disease, even several years before asymptomatic and undiagnosed. Using samples from the Taizhou prospective cohort, the Fudan research team proved in a strict sense that DNA methylation sequencing can detect cancer earlier than traditional diagnostic methods.

  It is reported that the Taizhou queue started construction in 2007. Up to now, nearly 200,000 community people have participated in the study. Through systematic cohort follow-up, the research team tracked the occurrence of various major chronic diseases in the cohort for a long time, and tracked and collected more than 1.5 million various biological samples from asymptomatic people at multiple time points for long-term preservation.

  Chen Xingdong told reporters that at present, some foreign detection methods similar to early screening studies for multiple cancers are expensive. This study confirmed that only a small amount of DNA needs to be sampled from a single tube of blood, which is effective and economical as an early screening method for potential first-line cancers. (Finish)