NHS Trial Rolls Out Multi-Cancer Blood Tests to GP Surgeries

Over twenty thousand NHS patients in England will soon get a new blood test at their GP surgery to check for multiple cancers in one go. The government-funded trial is led by the University of Birmingham and targets hard-to-diagnose abdominal cancers like liver, ovarian, and pancreatic cancer. These tricky diseases are usually only found after they have already spread. The new STRIDE-RCT trial involves patients aged forty-five and over who show vague symptoms like pain or persistent bloating. Scientists will analyze one or two tubes of blood for proteins or DNA fragments that signal cancer. A positive result does not automatically mean cancer is present. A negative result is also not a guaranteed all-clear. Health secretary Yvette Cooper hopes these simple blood tests will help doctors spot urgent cases much sooner. Around seventy-one thousand people in England get diagnosed with these specific cancers every year. Nearly thirty-five thousand of them die from the disease.