Balazs Halmos, Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Health System, shared on X:
“Holy Grail or holy sh..t?
Very intriguing results from the PATHFINDER–2 trial with Galleri MCED test – trial does not reach its endpoint (of reducing n of 12 index st 3/4 cancers by 3 years) but still… notable separation of stage 4 cancer detection curves at 3 yrs+ so maybe endpoint was overoptimistic/too early?
Despite very high specificity, low prevalence yields more false negatives than true positives so similar to scanxiety…. With MCED tests we will run risk of creating a new emotion: MSAD…”
See gallery below.
Title: A Step in the Search for the Elusive Holy Grail of Early Detection of Cancer.
Author: David J. Hunter.
Also NEJM shared:
“In a trial of a blood-based multicancer early-detection test added to usual care, the incidence of stage III or IV cancer after three rounds of screening did not differ significantly from that with usual care alone.
Editorial: A Step in the Search for the Elusive Holy Grail of Early Detection of Cancer.”
Title: Effect of Screening with Multicancer Early-Detection Test on Late-Stage Cancer Diagnosis.
Authors: Peter Sasieni, Peter Johnson, Thomas Round, Jane Warwick, Helen Jones, Saoirse Dolly, Lennard Lee, Yujin Lee, Harpal Kumar, Wei Liang, Rebecca Smittenaar, Richard D. Neal, Charles Swanton.
Other articles from NEJM on OncoDaily.
