A blood test could help to detect signs of breast cancer five years before there are clinical signs of the disease, a UK conference has heard.
Delegates at the 2019 NCRI Cancer Conference, Glasgow, heard yesterday that a pilot study at the University of Nottingham developed panels of antigens (TAAs) that are known already to be associated with breast cancer to detect whether or not there are autoantibodies against them.
The research team, part of the Centre of Excellence for Autoimmunity in Cancer (CEAC) group at the university’s School of Medicine, took blood samples from 90 breast cancer patients at the time they were diagnosed with the disease and also from 90 controls.
Using protein microarray screening technology, they screened the blood samples for the presence of autoantibodies against 40 TAAs associated with breast cancer, as well as 27 TAAs that were not known to be linked with the disease.
PhD student Daniyah Alfattani told delegates at the conference: “The results of our study showed that breast cancer does induce autoantibodies against panels of specific tumour-associated antigens. We were able to detect cancer with reasonable accuracy by identifying these autoantibodies in the blood.”
The researchers identified three panels of TAAs against which to test for autoantibodies and discovered that the accuracy of the test improved in the panels that contained more TAAs.
The panel of five TAAs correctly detected breast cancer in 29% of the cancer patients and correctly identified 84% of the control samples as being cancer free, while the panel of seven TAAs correctly identified cancer in 35% of cancer samples and no cancer in 79% of control samples.
The panel of nine antigens correctly identified cancer in 37% of cancer samples and no cancer in 79% of the controls.
The research team are now using a panel of nine TAAs to test blood samples from 800 patients.
Ms Alfattani added: “We need to develop and further validate this test. However, these results are encouraging and indicate that it’s possible to detect a signal for early breast cancer. Once we have improved the accuracy of the test, then it opens the possibility of using a simple blood test to improve early detection of the disease.
“A blood test for early breast cancer detection would be cost effective, which would be of particular value in low and middle income countries. It would also be an easier screening method to implement compared to current methods, such as mammography.
The researchers believe the test could be available within five years.
A similar test for lung cancer is being tested in a randomised controlled trial in Scotland, involving 12,000 people at high risk of developing lung cancer because they smoke.
Abstract no: Poster 2966, poster board number 37, area 2. Clinical utility of autoantibodies in early detection of breast cancer. Daniyah Alfattani et al.
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