The researchers, from Swansea University Medical School, said the test could detect cancer before there are any noticeable symptoms.
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Whereas in healthy patients, the average number of mutations is about five per million, in cancer patients there can be 50 to 100 mutants per million.
Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, lead researcher based at the MRC Cancer Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “Our study suggests we could make changes to the way we treat oesophageal cancer”. The dye sticks to healthy oesophageal cells but not to pre-cancerous cells.
The mutated blood cells are a side effect of the cancer and their cell recognition proteins are no longer able to attach to them.
The test detects mutations in proteins on the surface of red blood cells.
‘The old adage of no smoke without fire also applies to “no cancer without mutation”, as mutation is the main driving force for cancer development’.
Scientists have discovered that oesophageal cancer can be classified into three different subtypes, paving the way for testing targeted treatments tailored to patients’ disease for the first time.
“Although survival rates from oesophageal cancer have been slowly rising in the last few years they are still far too low, and this research points the way to a completely new way of understanding and tackling the disease”. For the first time we may be able to identify and test targeted treatments created to exploit the cancer’s specific weaknesses.
“The benefit of the blood cell mutation is that it can be monitored in a simple, efficient, and non-invasive way”, the statement said.
There are around 7,800 deaths from esophageal cancer every year in the United Kingdom, and for men it is the fourth most common cause of cancer death.
There are some 7,000 cases a year in the United Kingdom and Professor Jenkins said those people would be “pretty pleased” to have had a test capable of detecting the disease at an early stage.
While the research is still being developed, researchers say that in theory the test could work with other cancers.
Researchers analysed blood samples from 783 women enrolled on two major clinical trials of new treatments for advanced oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer, which, according to the ICR, accounts for three-quarters of all cases. The ICR said that this indicates that receptors for oestrogen in the cancer cells that are usually driven by the hormone have evolved to stay permanently switched on without it.
The test, costing £35 (A$61.23), could be available within five years and was tried on oesophagus cancer patients.
Dr Cathy Burton, joint national lead GP adviser at Macmillan Cancer Support told the BBC: “To give people with oesophageal cancer the best possible chance of survival, it is absolutely essential that we speed up the process of diagnosis”.
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‘But larger scale studies are needed to confirm the results and show the test is reliable before it can be used in the clinic’.
