NHS Cancer Blood Test Trial Publishes First Papers

A large-scale cancer trial investigating whether a blood test can help the NHS detect cancer early has published its first papers, both in leading international journals.

University of Exeter is part of the team assessing the NHS-Galleri trial , which involved 142,000 volunteers aged 50-77 from eight regions of England.

The trial is studying whether the Galleri (r) multi-cancer early detection test alongside existing cancer screening can help to find cancer early. The blood test can detect a 'signal' shared by many different types of cancer in a sample of a person's blood.

Professor Richard Neal , at the University of Exeter Medical School , is trial co-lead, and author on the two papers to detail the first results from the trial, including whether using the Galleri (r) multi-cancer early detection (MCED) blood test changed the stage at which cancers were diagnosed and how the test performed.