The makers of a blood screening test that is able to detect 50 types of cancers say it could be rolled out by the NHS next year, although final trial results have not yet been concluded.
The results of the large British trial of the Galleri screening test, which can detect the DNA of dozens of different cancer types in a blood sample, will only be revealed mid-2026.
Sir Harpal Kumar, the president of Grail, which makes the test, said he hoped the tests would be used in the NHS immediately.
“We’re hopeful the results will be positive and then I think it is a case of how quickly we can (start) to implement it,” he told a panel event discussing the future of cancer care.
“We can’t do what we’ve done in the past – which is we get results from great trials and then it takes a decade before we get to a decision to roll anything out.”
“Typically, we waste too much time and lose too many lives waiting and waiting”, he added, and the NHS should not let “perfection be the enemy of good”.
The Telegraph reports that Kumar, who is the former chief executive of Cancer Research UK, recommended “thinking forward” and making sure “we address the really big problems in the country by using these kinds of technologies as quickly as we possibly can”.
He told an audience of healthcare professionals that it was never going to be feasible economically to have separate screening programmes for every type of cancer.
‘The technology is there’
“I do think we’re going to have to have multi-cancer screening tests. The good news is the technology is there. It’s evolving and it’s continuing to improve.
“There’s a real sense of opportunity coming down the track to address some of these very hard-to-find cancers at a much earlier stage. We will see real progress in the next few years.”
It is understood the NHS is already in discussions with the Department of Health about how to expedite a roll-out if the results are positive.
Professor Peter Johnson, the NHS national cancer director, agreed the technology was promising but didn’t commit to the health service rolling it out, despite the ongoing trial.
He said the new techniques might offer some solutions for early diagnosis but advised caution about widespread screening of people without symptoms.
“The maths is always against you, because something uncommon (such as cholangiocarcinoma) would never constitute the basis of a broad screening programme, and tests would have to be extraordinarily accurate.
“But if we can have combinations of less common cancers that we may be able to detect from something we do once a year or once every two years, that is potentially a way into this.”
Currently the NHS only offers routine screening for bowel, breast and cervical cancers, and only to people who fit certain criteria, such as age.
More than 140 000 NHS patients have taken part in the Galleri trial, making it the largest multi-cancer test trial in the world.
Cancerous cells produce different DNA to healthy cells and the test aims to detect this in circulating blood and identify the origin and location of a cancer. Its makers say it can discern all major cancers.
Participants in the trial undergo three blood tests over two years.
The NHS said that, having reviewed the first year of the Galleri trial, it would wait until the final results at the end of year two before making a decision on a national roll-out.
In a statement, the NHS said: “Preliminary data from the first year of the trial [was not] compelling enough to justify proceeding straight away with a large-scale pilot programme of the test in NHS clinical practice.”
Some experts criticised the decision to run the trial at all, given a lack of evidence of success in previous trials. The British Medical Journal published an investigation last year that labelled it “overhyped and unethical”.
The Telegraph article – NHS could roll out multi-cancer blood test next year (Open access)
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