United States: In the most recent study, these proteins have been proven to be capable of acting as an alert or an indicator of cancer right at the early stages of its development, long before any conventional diagnostic approach can detect it.
How did scientists arrive at this conclusion?
Investigators from the University of Oxford looked at the blood test results of over 44,000 people who were part of the UK Biobank cohort, which included 4,900 who later tested positive for cancer, as written by the Guardian.
In this study, 618 proteins linked to 19 types of cancers were determined by comparing blood proteins between cancer and cancer-free subjects, and these cancers included colon, lung, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and liver cancers. The study was underwritten by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature Communications.
It also discovered 107 proteins connected to a cancer diagnosis that occurred not less than seven years after the blood sample was collected, while 182 proteins were strongly associated with a cancer diagnosis during the same period.
The investigation authors even advise towards the possibility to see the disease at the very early stages and hence provide new curing options. However further studies should be implemented to be sure on this topic since Guardian also argues it.
According to Dr Keren papier, who is a senior nutritional epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health at the University of Oxford and a joint author of the study, “To save more lives from cancer, we need to better understand what happens at the earliest stages of the disease … [and] how the proteins in our blood can affect our risk of cancer. Now we need to study these proteins in depth to see which ones could be reliably used for prevention.”
Additional findings from the study
The researchers also conducted a related study using genetic data from over 300,000 cancer cases, identifying 40 proteins in the blood that influence an individual’s likelihood of developing nine types of cancer.
They found that modifying these proteins could increase or decrease the risk of developing cancer, potentially leading to unexpected side effects in some cases.
According to Mark Lawler, the chair in translational cancer genomics and professor of digital health at Queen’s University Belfast, The data are impressive – finding evidence of cancer before it has manifested itself clinically provides a critical window of opportunity to treat with a greater chance for success, or even more importantly to achieve the holy grail of preventing cancer before it can even occur. More work to be done, but it is an important step forward in a disease that affects one in two UK citizens during their lives.”
Moreover, Lawrence Young, who was a professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, added that the findings were another step forward toward identifying markers of enhanced risks of developing cancer.
He added, “Determining protein changes that precede the development of cancer is not only important in identifying high-risk individuals but could also provide insights into factors responsible for causing cancer.”