Written in blood

• Autores: Linda Geddes
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3065, 2016, págs. 38-41
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Geddes discusses how to keep an eye on a cancer's ominous transformations, figure out the best way to treat it and check that it is not stealthily growing back. The answer could be written in blood. A test based on tiny bits of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) released into the circulation by cancer cells might even give doctors away to catch the disease earlier. The best time to treat cancers is when there are very few cancer cells, when there are fewer chances for them to develop resistance. All cells, including cancer cells, release DNA into the blood when they die. Researchers have known for some time that it is possible to detect this free-floating DNA in the circulation, and that people with cancer have more of it than healthy people. In the earliest stages of the disease, the number of fragments deriving from cancer cells--known as circulating tumor DNA--is vanishingly small. But as the tumor grows, so does the quantity of DNA fragments.