The NHS has announced a world-first trial of a blood test designed to detect a range of abdominal cancers, which will be rolled out to at least 200 GP surgeries in England.
Revealed on Wednesday (November 4), the trial will involve over 20,000 NHS patients. It aims to provide earlier diagnosis for some of the most common cancers, assessing whether simple blood tests can spot prostate, ovarian, bowel, pancreatic, stomach, liver, and other abdominal cancers.
Who Can Take Part in the Trial?
Patients aged 45 and over who visit their GP with abdominal symptoms such as persistent bloating or discomfort will be offered the chance to take part. Through the blood tests, doctors hope to detect early markers of cancer before more severe symptoms develop, potentially catching and treating major cancers before they progress.
According to the NHS, around 71,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic, stomach, liver, ovarian or bowel cancer in England every year, with almost 35,000 deaths from these cancers. Around nine in ten people diagnosed with bowel cancer at stage 1 survive at least five years, compared with around one in ten at stage 4.
How the STRIDE-RCT Test Works
Called STRIDE-RCT, the trial will use a single blood sample to look for signs of several cancers and suggest where they’re coming from in the body. Developed by the University of Birmingham, patients will be asked to have one or two tubes of blood taken at their GP, alongside routine blood tests.
Technology, including artificial intelligence and measuring proteins in the blood, will be used. If a positive result is recorded, the GP and patient will decide if an urgent referral is needed, as the tests don’t provide a confirmed cancer diagnosis.
Funding and Next Steps
The trial is being funded by the Office for Life Sciences through the government’s National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), with it receiving £8.49 million of government funding. It will assess how well the tests work alongside GPs’ judgement before an assessment is made on rolling them out nationwide.
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Yvette Cooper said: “The earlier cancers are diagnosed, the more chance they can be successfully treated, and lives can be saved. This world-first trial will establish whether simple blood tests can help GPs identify much sooner the patients who need urgent support.”
Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, said: “Cancer affects all of us at some point in our lives, and millions of people up and down the country will know how it feels to face that awful uncertainty while they wait for a diagnosis. Finding cases early is key – giving patients a clear path to treatment and helping save lives.”
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer and Chair of the Office for Life Sciences Cancer Goal, said: ”Detecting abdomen cancer early is notoriously difficult because the symptoms can easily be mistaken for other less serious conditions, but the NHS is determined to find a solution.”
He added: “We are at the start of a revolution in cancer diagnosis, and this trial will help us to find out whether blood tests can help GPs get the right patients to the right tests sooner, supporting earlier diagnosis when treatment is most likely to be successful.”
