A blood test will be able to identify breast cancer relapse months before tumours become visible, researchers announced last night.
The British researchers used a digital polymerase chain reaction test to identify DNA from tumours in the blood from patients.
The test was set for each patient to search for DNA associated with the cancer they had suffered.
The 55 patients who took part in the study at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, were tested after surgery and every six months afterwards.
An analysis, published last night in Science Translational Medicine, showed that when circulating tumour DNA was found women were at 12 times the risk of relapse than those whose tests were negative. The test predicted relapse in 12 out of 15 women who experienced this.
The researchers report that the test proved unable to predict metastatic tumour in the brain.
The returning cancer was identified on average nearly eight months before tumours recurred.
Developers said it would be "some years" before the tests were available routinely.
Researcher Dr Nicholas Turner, an oncologist at the hospital, said: "Ours in the first study to show that these blood tests could be used to predict relapse. It will be some years before the test could potentially be available in hospitals, but we hope to bring this date closer by conducting much larger clinical trials starting next year.
"There are still challenges in implementing this technology, but digital PCR is relatively cost-effective and the information that it provides could make a real difference to breast cancer patients."
Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, said: "This test could help us stay a step ahead of cancer by monitoring the way it is changing and picking treatments that exploit the weakness of the particular tumour.
"It is really fantastic that we can get such a comprehensive insight about what is going on in the cancer all over the body, without the need for invasive biopsies."
Mutation tracking in circulating tumor DNA predicts relapse in early breast cancer. Science Translational Medicine 26 August 2015 [abstract]
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