A Blood Test So Sensitive That It can Spot a Single Cancer Cell Among Billions of Healthy Ones is Moving One Step Closer to Being Available at Physicians' Offices

A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell among billions of healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at physicians' offices. Boston scientists who invented the test and healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick NJ) announced that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year. Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung. Initially, doctors want to use the test to try to predict what treatments would be best for each patient's tumor and find out quickly if they are working. "This is like a liquid biopsy" that avoids painful tissue sampling and may give a better way to monitor patients than periodic imaging scans, said Dr. Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's cancer center and one of the test's inventors. Ultimately, the test may offer a way to screen for cancer besides the mammograms, colonoscopies and other less-than-ideal methods used now. "There's a lot of potential here, and that's why there's a lot of excitement," said Dr. Mark Kris, lung cancer chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He had no role in developing the test, but Sloan-Kettering is one of the sites that will study it this year. Many people have their cancers diagnosed through needle biopsies. These often do not provide enough of a sample to determine what genes or pathways control a tumor's growth. Or the sample may no longer be available by the time the patient gets sent to a specialist to decide what treatment to prescribe. Doctors typically give a drug or radiation treatment and then do a CT scan two months later to look for tumor shrinkage. Some patients only live long enough to try one or two treatments, so a test that can gauge success sooner, by looking at cancer cells in the blood, could give patients more options.