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A new blood test tested could prevent the "blind" administration of chemotherapy in patients recovering from ovarian cancer or bowel disease.
To prevent cancer, recurrent patients often receive chemotherapy after surgery, although there is no indication that it is necessary.
Hugh McDermott was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had just undergone surgery to remove a large tumor.
He said the idea of not knowing whether to follow up with chemotherapy was the most troubling part of his recovery.
"It's the uncertainty of not knowing which path to choose when chemotherapy is offered, and then to undergo the treatment that would disrupt my life again," McDermott told AAP.
Fortunately, Mr. McDermott was eligible for the special blood test which showed that his cancer was not likely to recur, thus preventing unnecessary doses of the anticancer drug.
"Christmas was approaching and I had made plans to travel, I felt very relieved to be able to continue my life," he said.
Led by Prof. Jeanne Tie of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, the new technology is being tested in more than 40 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand.
The highly sensitive test looks for DNA fragments of the tumor in a patient's blood, which until recently was undetectable.
Professor Tie described the detection of these particular cancer cells in normal DNA, such as finding "a needle in a haystack".
Currently, chemotherapy is offered to almost all patients with bowel cancer to prevent the risk of cancer recurrence.
"This really changes the game for us because we treat patients almost blindly," Professor Tie told AAP.
"In fact, only about 20% of patients would benefit from chemotherapy."
For patients with ovarian cancer and convalescent bowel who are at high risk of relapse, personalized doses of chemotherapy could be adapted accordingly.
After the start of the trial in 2015, the "high-risk" and "low-risk" groups were determined in patients with early-stage bowel cancer. It was later extended to women with ovarian cancer in 2017.
More than 400 patients have already joined, but researchers hope to recruit more than 2,000 by mid-2019.
Mr. McDermott encourages others to participate in the trial to register.
"There is a great benefit to having access to information that could allay uncertainty caused by uncertainty in the future."
The study is expected to last until 2021 for bowel cancer and until 2019 for ovarian cancer.
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