Breast cancer runs in my family... here's what I discovered when I paid £449 for a new test that told me my risk

Breast cancer runs in my family...

here's what I discovered when I paid £449 for a new test that told me my risk By Rebecca Ley for the Daily Mail Published: 02:02, 9 July 2024 | Updated: 02:10, 9 July 2024 e-mail View comments For those of us with a strong family history of breast cancer , new blood cancer tests pose an interesting conundrum. Should we fork out and go private to have one of these ‘liquid biopsies’, still a long way from being freely available on the NHS ? Or do we stick with existing screening methods, such as the annual mammograms I already have? There’s no doubt that we’ve entered a new era of cancer detection, but — while obviously brilliant if it saves lives — it is still only in the early stages and not yet rigorously tested in large-scale trials. A ‘liquid biopsy’ is a blood test that detects signs of cancerous tumours.

A ‘liquid biopsy’ is a blood test that detects signs of cancerous tumours. Some can identify over 50 different types of cancer The tests could be an alternative to annual mammograms for those with a family history of breast cancer One of these is the Galleri test, currently being trialled on the NHS. It looks for changes in fragments of genetic code — cell-free DNA (cfDNA) — that leak from tumours into the bloodstream.

It can help to identify over 50 different types of cancer (based on the results reported so far, the test is not currently that good at picking up stage 1 cancer, where the cancer is small and has.