In a new study, researchers found that breast cancer could be detected up to five years before there are any clinical signs of it, with a blood test that identifies the body’s immune response to substances produced by tumor cells.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Nottingham.
Cancer cells produce proteins called antigens that trigger the body to make antibodies against them—autoantibodies.
The team found that these tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) are good indicators of cancer, and now they have developed panels of TAAs associated with breast cancer to detect whether or not there are autoantibodies against them in blood samples taken from patients.
In a pilot study, the researchers took blood samples from 90 breast cancer patients at the time they were diagnosed with breast cancer and matched them with samples taken from 90 patients without breast cancer (the control group).
They used screening technology (protein microarray) that allowed them to screen the blood samples rapidly for the presence of autoantibodies against 40 TAAs linked to breast cancer, and also 27 TAAs that were not known to be linked with the disease.
The results showed that breast cancer does induce autoantibodies against panels of specific tumor-associated antigens.
The researchers were able to detect cancer with reasonable accuracy by identifying these autoantibodies in the blood.
They identified three panels of TAAs against which to test for autoantibodies. 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 samples from the cancer patients and correctly identified 84% of the control samples as being cancer-free.
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.
These results are encouraging and indicate that it’s possible to detect a signal for early breast cancer.
Once the team has improved the accuracy of the test, it opens the possibility of using a simple blood test to improve the early detection of the disease.
One author of the study is Ms Daniyah Alfattani, a Ph.D. student in the group.
The study was presented at the 2019 NCRI Cancer Conference.
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