Blood Test Can Predict How Patient’s Cancer Could Grow and Spread

Determining whether a tumor might grow or metastasize to other parts of a patient's body could be crucial for survival, and scientists are now closer to predicting such outcomes. Researchers have demonstrated how cancer cells' DNA changes can help anticipate their future behavior, including metastasis, which is responsible for most cancer deaths worldwide. The findings from seven studies may eventually enable doctors to use blood tests to predict cancer growth and spread, track it, and quickly adapt treatment in real-time. It also provides a potential avenue for clinicians to assess the risk of disease recurrence after surgery.

The research was carried out by scientists at the Francis Crick Institute (London, UK) and University College London (UCL, London, UK) on patients with lung cancer, though the findings could also apply to other cancer types, such as skin or kidney cancer. These studies are the result of nine years of research from Cancer Research UK’s (London, UK) GBP 14 million TRACERx study, the first long-term investigation of lung cancer evolution. TRACERx is a nationwide research effort involving over 800 patients in clinical trials and 250 investigators based at 13 hospital sites across the UK.

In these seven studies, Crick and UCL researchers followed 421 of the 842 TRACERx participants, monitoring how their tumors evolved over time. The patients had non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer. Key findings include the discovery that tumors can consist of diverse populations of cancer cells with constantly changing gene sets. The more diverse the tumor, the higher is the likelihood of cancer recurrence within one year of treatment. The researchers also identified certain patterns of DNA changes that could indicate future cancer behavior. These patterns could reveal which parts of a tumor might grow and spread to other body parts. Blood tests could monitor these tumor DNA changes in real-time, assisting doctors in detecting early signs of cancer recurrence or treatment resistance.

“By looking at the tumor in its entirety, we can observe how these cell populations interact and even compete with one another, which is helping us to glean valuable insights into the likelihood that a tumor will return and when this might happen,” said Professor Charles Swanton, lead researcher based at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UCL and Cancer Research UK’s Chief Clinician. “We can also observe how the tumor is likely to evolve over time, spread and respond to treatment, offering hope to millions of patients in the future.”

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Francis Crick Institute
UCL
Cancer Research UK