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Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Hebrew University developed a blood test that detects early-stage breast cancer with 95% accuracy and predicts recurrence with 81% accuracy.
By Hermes Vector
An international team led by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed an experimental blood test that detects early-stage breast cancer with 95 percent accuracy for localized tumors under two centimeters.
The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Nature. It grew out of a collaboration between Dr. Efrat Shema’s lab at Weizmann, Hebrew University’s Prof. Guy Ron, and physicians at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. Researchers in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States also participated.
The scientists mapped breast tumors’ epigenetics, the chemical modifications that dictate which genes are turned on or off without altering the genetic code itself. They focused on nucleosomes, the microscopic packages of DNA wound around structural proteins that cells release when they break down.
The team placed blood samples onto specialized glass slides and treated them with fluorescent antibodies engineered to recognize dozens of distinct chemical tags on these protein spools. Using high-resolution, single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, the imaging system scanned millions of these spools one by one. Advanced computational algorithms and artificial intelligence were used to sift through millions of optical signals, isolating the coordinated pattern of a malignant tumor.
The researchers tested the method on blood samples from 77 breast cancer patients who had been followed for at least five years at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, comparing them with samples from 30 healthy women. The trained artificial intelligence models distinguished between the two groups, achieving 95 percent accuracy in detecting early-stage breast cancer, when the tumor was still confined to the breast, measuring less than two centimeters.
The test also outperforms conventional tissue biopsies in assessing the risk of recurrence after treatment. Even when breast cancer is caught early, and treatment appears successful, the disease returns in 20 to 40 percent of cases.
The researchers discovered that even breast cancer tumors not considered aggressive contain a rare population of highly aggressive and invasive cells with a distinct epigenetic signature. “The differences appear to be mainly epigenetic,” Shema explained. “When we grew breast cancer models in the lab starting with nonaggressive cells, an aggressive population always emerged eventually.”
“Using this signature and additional epigenetic markers, we were able to distinguish with 81 percent accuracy between patients whose cancer returned during follow-up and those who didn’t experience a recurrence,” Ron said.
The test even flagged a risk of recurrence in patients considered low risk by conventional measures, the scientists said.
According to the World Health Organization, in 2022, roughly 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide, and 670,000 died. The Israel Cancer Association reports that about 4,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Israel each year, and about 900 die of the disease.
Shema noted that the newly developed blood test demonstrated strong diagnostic performance regardless of breast density. She added that when the research expanded to evaluate blood samples from 188 patients with help from the Kaplan and Sheba medical centers, “it performed just as well across different types of breast cancer.”
The study is described as experimental, and the sources do not state when the test might become available for clinical use.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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