Circulating Tumor DNA Can Be Detected Several Years Before Cancer Diagnosis

FRIDAY, June 13, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Circulating tumor DNA can be detected more than three years prior to a clinical cancer diagnosis, according to a research brief published online May 22 in Cancer Discovery.

Yuxuan Wang, M.D., Ph.D., from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues prospectively collected serial plasma samples from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study to examine how early cancers can be detected prior to clinical signs or symptoms, including data from 26 participants diagnosed with cancer and 26 matched controls.

Eight of the 52 participants scored positively with a multicancer early detection (MCED) test at the index time point. The researchers found that within four months after blood collection, all eight participants were diagnosed with cancer. In six of these participants, an earlier plasma sample collected 3.1 to 3.5 years prior to clinical diagnosis was assessed. The same mutations detected by the MCED test could be identified in four of these six participants but at 8.6- to 79-fold lower mutant allele fractions.

“Detecting cancers years before their clinical diagnosis could help provide management with a more favorable outcome,” senior author Nickolas Papadopoulos, Ph.D., from The Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics in Baltimore, said in a statement. “Of course, we need to determine the appropriate clinical follow-up after a positive test for such cancers.”

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

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