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Scientists are not far from creating blood tests that can be used to detect the earliest stages of cancer, Guardant Health co-founder and CEO Helmy Eltoukhy said on Monday.
The Silicon Valley Oncology Society, supported by SoftBank, is collaborating with UK-based AstraZeneca to develop blood tests to identify cancer patients who may respond to treatment with cancer. oncology treatments from AstraZeneca.
Cancer DNA fragments are found in the blood of a patient and give doctors clues about the treatments most likely to work. The so-called "liquid biopsy" tests, capable of detecting this tiny genetic material, already constitute a standard of care for people with stage 3 or stage 4 cancer, a cancer whose growth is well advanced, said Eltoukhy.
"We are not so far from seeing the promise of a blood test for early detection that will become reality," Eltoukhy told CNBC's Meg Tirrell at the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2019 in Chicago.
Physicians have the opportunity to use tissue biopsies, tiny fragments of tumors surgically removed from patients, to determine the genes that lead to cancer growth. However, tissue biopsies can sometimes be difficult to obtain, especially in patients with lung cancer.
At the end of last year, Eltoukhy said the Guardant product had been used in 50 types of cancers, but that lung cancer accounted for about 45% of the volume because traditional tissue biopsy is the most difficult and has the highest rate. highest failure.
Guardant expects liquid biopsies to help patients where tissue biopsies can not. A number of other companies are also marketing blood cancer tests, including Exact Sciences, Grail, California-based, and Freenome, which is truly supported.
Guardant Health shares closed up more than 1% Monday at $ 78.17 per share. The stock is up more than 142% since entering the Nasdaq in October 2018.
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