By Alexandra Thompson Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 09:58 BST, 17 April 2019 | Updated: 10:02 BST, 17 April 2019
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A simple blood test could accurately detect a breast-cancer survivor's risk of the disease returning, research suggests.
A study that looked for a cancer marker in the blood of nearly 50 patients detected 89 per cent of relapses.
And the blood test spotted them up to two years before existing scans, according to the scientists behind the study.
Catching the killer disease early drastically boosts a patient's chance of treatment success and survival.
A blood test could detect a breast-cancer survivor's risk of the disease returning (stock)
The research was carried out by the University of Leicester and Imperial College London. It was led by Dr Jacqui Shaw, professor of translational cancer at Leicester.
'Currently, there are no sensitive and specific clinical tests available to follow breast-cancer patients after their primary treatment,' Dr Shaw said.
'The results of this exciting study show it is possible to monitor patients with a simple blood-based test.
'This may provide a critical window of opportunity for earlier treatment than by other current tests.'
One in eight women in the UK and US develop breast cancer at some point in their lives, statistics reveal.
While survival rates have improved, relapse remains a problem, with as many as 30 per cent of patients suffering a second diagnosis within five years.
And there are no 'sensitive and reliable tests to monitor these patients', the authors wrote in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
To test whether blood analysis could overcome this, the researchers took samples from 49 patients who had recently undergone surgery and chemotherapy.
The participants were battling a range of different types of breast cancer. This included HER2-positive, which is a form of the disease that tests positive for the cancer-fueling protein HER2.
Other patients had hormone receptor-positive cancer - which grows in response to oestrogen - and triple-negative tumours - which lack oestrogen, progesterone and HER2 receptors.
Blood samples were taken from the patients every six months for up to four years. These underwent a test, known as Signatera, which accesses mutant DNA released from dying tumours.
Results of the test were compared against the patients' scans and clinical outcomes over the years.
The blood-sample analysis detected relapses on average 8.9 months faster than existing scans. And in some cases it was even two years quicker.
Study author Professor Charles Coombes, of the faculty of medicine, department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London, said: 'Standard technologies for the detection of cancer recurrence have always been imprecise.
'With this innovative method of detecting minimal residual breast cancer, we now have the opportunity to conduct trials of treatments to prevent patients relapsing with symptomatic metastatic breast cancer.'
Dr David Crosby, head of early detection at Cancer Research UK, added: 'The initial results of this study are encouraging.
'Monitoring when breast cancer returns in some patients is an
