Chinese scientists use drop of blood to detect cancer

A new test that can detect multiple kinds of cancer by analysing a drop of human blood has been developed in China.

Luo Yongzhang and his team from China's Tsinghua University's School of Life Sciences here has produced an artificial Hsp90a protein that gains structural stability by regrouping proteins.

The new test can detect multiple kinds of cancer by analysing a drop of human blood, the report said.

The kit has since been used in clinical trials involving 2,347 patients at eight hospitals in China.

It was the first clinical trial in the world to test if the protein could be a useful tumour biomarker for lung cancer, and it succeeded, the report said.

Now, the kit has been certified to enter the Chinese and European markets, 24 years after Hsp90a was discovered.

Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body.

In 2015, about 90.5 million people were suffering from cancer world-wide. Approximately 8.8 million human deaths, or 15.7 per cent of all deaths in the world, are caused by cancer.

In China alone, 4.29 million people were detected as having cancer in 2015, and 2.8 million of them died in that year.