Can cancer blood tests live up to promise of saving lives?
LA TimesJoyce Ares was feeling fine when she learned through a blood test that she had Hodgkin lymphoma. That’s not the case for devices like blood tests,” said Dr. Barry Kramer of the Lisa Schwartz Foundation for Truth in Medicine. Jacob Marquez, a clinical research coordinator at Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute in Portland, Ore., draws blood from clinical study participant David Parker on March 14. For some, blood tests led to scans that never located a cancer, which could mean the result was a false positive, or it could mean there’s a mystery cancer that will show up later. Although Ares feels lucky, it’s impossible to know whether her test added healthy years to her life or made no real difference, said Kramer, former director of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Prevention.