Ever so often the successful treatment of a cancer patient depends on an early and accurate diagnosis. Researchers at the National Institute of Health (NIH), US, have identified a way to check for colon, lung, breast, stomach, and womb cancer with a single blood test. This will surely be a very useful diagnostic tool.

Having identified a striking signature in the DNA of the tumour that occurs in these types of cancers was the first step to developing this tool. They also have found some evidence to support the fact that a similar methylation signature may be present in other types of cancers. This will lead to future blood tests that may be able to identify a wide range of possible cancers in a relatively easy and inexpensive manner.

Dan Kastner from the NIH says that finding the signature was an incredibly arduous and valuable process. He says that the findings would play an important step in developing a test to identify early cancers through a simple blood test. Needless to say that the successful culmination of this science project will make life much easier for health care professionals in terms of successfully diagnosing cancers and getting the right treatment to their patients.