验血，可以在症状出现前发现致命的癌症

验血，可以在症状出现前发现致命的癌症

A DNA-based test pinpoints the tissue of origin for almost all sampled cancers.

一项基于DNA的检测，可以精确定位几乎所有样本癌症的起源组织。

By the time a person notices the first symptoms of cancer, the disease has often spread too far to be treated successfully. But that could change, thanks to a blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer, often at an early stage.

当一个人注意到癌症的最初症状时，这种疾病通常已经扩散得太远而无法成功治疗。但这种情况可能会改变，因为血液检测可以检测出50多种癌症，而且通常处于早期阶段。

Michael Seiden at US Oncology Research in The Woodlands, Texas, and his colleagues analysed blood samples from 2,185 people with cancer and 2,131 healthy individuals. The researchers scoured the samples for DNA that had entered the bloodstream on cell death and probed the DNA for chemical alterations that are indicators of cancer.

德克萨斯州伍德兰市美国肿瘤研究所的迈克尔·塞登和他的同事分析了2185名癌症患者和2131名健康人的血液样本。研究人员对细胞死亡时进入血液的DNA样本进行了搜索，并探测了DNA中的化学变化，这些变化是癌症的迹象。

The authors then developed an algorithm to predict the presence of cancer on the basis of these chemical fingerprints. For a group of 12 particularly deadly cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, the algorithm could detect tumour signatures in 39% of people with early-stage cancer and 92% of individuals with advanced cancer. In 93% of cases, the test could also predict the tissue in which the cancer had originated.

然后，作者开发了一种基于这些化学指纹预测癌症存在的算法。对于一组12种特别致命的癌症，如胰腺癌，该算法可以检测39%的早期癌症患者和92%的晚期癌症患者的肿瘤特征。在93%的病例中，该检测也能预测癌症起源的组织。

The ability to detect multiple types of cancer and identify a cancer’s location in the body could make successful treatment more likely, the authors say.

作者说，检测多种癌症类型和确定癌症在体内的位置的能力，可能会使治疗成功的可能性大大增加。