An innovation that could change lives: the liquid biopsy early cancer diagnosis test allows you to suspect cancer before symptoms appear
An innovation that can change lives: an advanced early cancer screening tool is now available in Lithuania
No one who feels completely healthy is safe from the situation when the news of cancer strikes like thunder and instantly shatters all life plans. The risk of this happening can be reduced. Trucheck™, an innovative cancer test that has been running in Europe for several years and which detects cancer at an early stage before symptoms appear, is now available in Lithuania. The test is unique because a single venous blood sample can be used to detect as many as 70 types of solid tumours, which cover about 81% of all cancer cases. It is also possible to identify the organ where the tumour is located. This is a major breakthrough in the early diagnosis of cancer.
Vital for successful treatment and improved survival
“Around 16,500 new cancer cases are diagnosed in Lithuania each year, and more than 8,000 deaths are related to cancer. The most common cancers are breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer. Unfortunately, they are often diagnosed at an advanced stage, requiring more intensive and expensive treatments, which have a higher risk of side-effects and are less effective. Detecting cancer in the early, localized stages is vital for successful treatment, lower treatment costs, reduced toxicity and improved survival,” says Asta Križanauskienė, PhD in biomedical sciences.
The Trucheck™ liquid biopsy test for the early diagnosis of solid tumours detects tumour cells circulating in the blood and groups of these cells that only malignant tumours express. These cells and cell groups are not detected in the blood of healthy individuals. If they are identified as cancer cells, the molecular profile of the malignant structure that produces them is analyzed to determine the type of cell, to obtain information about the tissue of origin of the tumour and to identify the organ of origin. This helps to make further diagnostic tests much more accurate, reducing the number of tests and the probability of errors.
“This cancer test is an advanced cancer screening tool that has no analogue: it detects the origin of the cancerous tissue or the organ in which the tumour is located with 96% accuracy in positive cases, with a sensitivity of 65% to 89% depending on the type of tumour, and a specificity of 96% to 99%”, says the biomedical Ph.D. “When I say this innovation can change lives, it’s more than just a sound phrase. If you have more than one person in your family who has been diagnosed with or died from cancer, chances are that you too may be predisposed to developing cancer.
Oncological diseases were also frequent in Križanauskienė’s family – her father died early of cancer, and her grandmother, and grandfather were also affected by cancer. This prompted her to take the Trucheck™ test as soon as it was available. Although it was negative this time, she plans to repeat it every year. According to different sources, genetic factors contribute between 20% and 30% to the risk of cancer. However, there are exceptions, such as BRCA gene mutations. The risk of breast cancer for women who inherit a BRCA gene mutation is as high as 80%, and ovarian cancer up to 45%.
You can learn about your increased risk of developing cancer in the future
Other factors also play a role. It may also make sense to have this cancer screening for people who have harmful habits such as smoking, alcohol abuse, harmful working conditions, significant environmental pollution and exposure to radiation. Scientists can now also perform whole genome testing to find out if a person is prone to certain diseases, but it is not yet available to most people due to its complexity and high cost. It is expected that genome sequencing will become routine in the future, but until then, we can take advantage of Trucheck™.
The scientist points out that there are rare cases where circulating cancer cells are detected, but CT scans, MRIs and other tests do not find the tumour. This information is also very important as it indicates an increased risk of developing cancer in the near future. A large study of 4,000 individuals who were found to have a group of circulating cancer cells was monitored for a full year and found that they had a 230-fold increase in their risk of developing cancer within 12 months.
Knowing this can help people to pay more attention to prevention, give up harmful habits, eat healthier, be more physically active, control other risk factors, get regular check-ups, and take other preventive measures. Therefore, even healthy people who do not feel any symptoms, do not complain about anything, but take care of their health and want to avoid oncological diseases in the future, should undergo the Trucheck™ test once a year, advises A. Križanauskienė. Statistics show that positive cases account for 0.5-0.8% of all tests performed.
Of course, it must be kept in mind that some patients develop cancer very quickly, lightning-fast, both because of the individual characteristics of the body, and when the level of malignancy of the cells is very high, they spread very quickly. If they had a test a year ago, it may not have shown anything at all, and if they repeat it a year later, the disease may already be advanced. In rare cases, in some types of cancer, cancer cells are not actively released into the peripheral circulation, or a large proportion of them are destroyed by the immune system and are not detected by the test. The test also detects tumour genetic material (ctDNA) circulating freely in the blood, which increases the likelihood of detecting an active cancer cases.
