"A blood test which looks for multiple types of cancer has failed to achieve its key objective in a major NHS trial, the company has announced. The Galleri blood test is being trialled on 142,000 NHS patients with the goal of finding cancers early and saving lives. However, the company behind the test, Grail, said there were still positive signs in the data that some of the most aggressive cancers could be prevented."
"The trial was designed to see if screening people's blood would reduce the number of cancers being diagnosed at later stages when they may be harder to treat. Stage three cancers are when a tumour has started to spread locally, stage four is when they have spread to distant organs in the body too. The full data from the three-year NHS trial has not been published, but Grail has issued an update to investors."
"Grail, a US pharmaceutical company, halved in value after the announcement taking its share price back to levels seen at the end of the summer. However, a further analysis looking at stage four cancers alone showed they fell by around a fifth in the study, suggesting the most deadly cancers were being detected at an earlier stage."
An NHS trial of the Galleri blood test involving 142,000 participants aimed to detect up to 50 cancer types early by identifying tumour DNA fragments in blood. The trial sought to lower diagnoses of stage three and four cancers but did not meet its primary endpoint, although there was a trend toward reduction in combined stage three and four cancers. A separate analysis showed stage four diagnoses fell by around one-fifth, indicating earlier detection of the most deadly cancers. Grail's share price fell sharply after the update. Researchers consider any survival benefits speculative until the test is proven to save lives.
Read at www.bbc.com
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