Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2291 readers

138 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Blood test shows 83% accuracy for detecting colorectal cancer in trial (www.upi.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A blood test to screen for colorectal cancer in average-risk individuals without symptoms accurately detected the malignancy in 83% of people confirmed to have the disease, a study released Wednesday showed.

The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers said the blood test's accuracy rate for colorectal cancer is similar to at-home stool tests. It's a promising step, they said, to developing more accessible screening tools for catching the disease early -- when it's easier to treat.

The test would could improve upon low levels of colorectal cancer screening -- a major cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States that results in some 50,000 deaths each year.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I didn't study medicine but if we could lower the major barrier to people and their doctors having this info by including it in any other blood test done, e.g. not needing separate and potentially socially awkward procedure(which is the major barrier to testing), that would be an enormous increase in awareness? Without stats on what % of colon cancer evades early screening, it's hard to say what the impact would be but if you can easily do it with an annual physical vs. asking people to have a socially awkward but more accurate oscopy done, wouldn't that solve a big portion of cases by putting them in the funnel earlier at least and lead to better outcomes? Send someone a test result they may be positive for colon cancer and they will have approximately 0% objection to getting a colonoscopy to confirm or gather info, so the blood test could be a great solution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I didn’t thought of it this way. I agree with you, that this would be the greatest benefit.