A Real Game Changer: Blood Test Catches Cancer Before a Tumor Appears

A new blood test has been deemed the “holy grail” of cancer treatment and following its successful trial on patients, hospitals across the United Kingdom that are administering it can predict cancers up to 18 months before a tumor is formed.

“We can detect [cancer] earlier than other known technologies… before the tumor has physically formed,” explains Ashish Tripathi, founder and CEO of Tzar Labs and chairman of Epigeneres Biotech, the Indian firm where the test was first developed in 2021. “Not only can I actually detect it at this stage — I can actually tell you which cancer and where it is forming, straight from a blood test.”

500 non-cancer and 500 cancer patients took part in the trial which anticipated the formation of tumors across 25 types of cancer, including breast, pancreatic, lung, and colorectal. Among the non-cancer patients, some learned that they were predisposed to future cancer diagnosis. “We did not get even one false negative, not even one false positive.” The blood test is a game-changer because it zeroes in on stem cells – where all cells come from, even the cancerous ones – with a biomarker for cancer, giving a head start to specialists to administer targeted treatments to prevent the formation of tumors. It takes 1 billion cancer cells to make a tumor of 1 cubic centimeter – a very small mass to detect through CT scanners – complicating diagnostics and treatments. “What we wish is a world where all of us will do this test once a year, and we will either catch cancer at Stage 1 or before — every time — when it is infinitely more curable.”