<story><title>Trial of a blood test that detects eight common forms of cancer</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42736764</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AstralStorm</author><text>They glossed over the false positive rate...</text></item><item><author>tempestn</author><text>This was the most exciting part for me:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It was trialled on 1,005 patients with cancers in the ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, oesophagus, colon, lung or breast that had not yet spread to other tissues.&lt;p&gt;Overall, the test found 70% of the cancers. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I expected it to be blood cancers only, but this list covers many of the most common forms of cancer. Could be a huge development.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phaemon</author><text>They did not gloss over it. It&amp;#x27;s right there in the abstract: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;science.aar3247&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;science.sciencemag.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;early&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;17&amp;#x2F;scien...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please realise that, just because a detail is omitted in a news report, it does not mean that the team who did the research didn&amp;#x27;t think of it, or tried to hide it. This is just the usual shoddy reporting by the BBC.</text></comment>
<story><title>Trial of a blood test that detects eight common forms of cancer</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42736764</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AstralStorm</author><text>They glossed over the false positive rate...</text></item><item><author>tempestn</author><text>This was the most exciting part for me:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It was trialled on 1,005 patients with cancers in the ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, oesophagus, colon, lung or breast that had not yet spread to other tissues.&lt;p&gt;Overall, the test found 70% of the cancers. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I expected it to be blood cancers only, but this list covers many of the most common forms of cancer. Could be a huge development.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Bron101</author><text>From other sources (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medscape.com&amp;#x2F;viewarticle&amp;#x2F;891491&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medscape.com&amp;#x2F;viewarticle&amp;#x2F;891491&lt;/a&gt;) I was able to find they had a specificity of &amp;gt;99%, with a sensitivity averaging 70% but was as low as 20% on certain cancers (esophageal cancer).&lt;p&gt;With such an excellent specificity this sounds promising as a cheap screening tool, although the sensitivity is too low in some cancer types to be used as a means to rule out cancer.</text></comment>