Article by Sheila Challiner

There is hope that many thousands of lives could be saved each year with a variety of leading edge tests for major cancers.

Research has been carried out involving over 10,000 people and the result is a very simple and cost effective way of measuring hormones in the blood, which could determine people who are at higher risk of developing the disease. This would mean that doctors could make sure they had the correct advice on lifestyle and diet.

It is believed that the discovery could be as great as the successful cholesterol testing has been, as an early warning system for later problems, which could be avoidable.

Thousands of deaths from major cancers like breast, lung, bowel and prostate cancers could be avoided and it could lead to new treatments for the disease.

The study was led by Dr Andrew Renehan, of the Christie in Manchester, who said the test could transform the whole picture of cancer prevention if people were to start to use it whilst in their forties and fifties.

Some experts were wary about the development, fearing that it could produce people who were “cancer hypochondriacs” and who would let their lives be dominated by fear of cancer. Those shown to be at risk may also find difficulties in getting insurance cover.

The Manchester researchers, who worked in collaboration with team of Swiss researchers, investigating the link between levels of a particular two hormones and the chance of developing cancer several years later. These hormones, calledIGF-1 and IGFBP-3, are known to vary widely between individuals.

Of around 10,000 people, who came from a number of countries, who were followed for several years, around a third developed breast, lung, bowel or prostate cancer.

When it came to breast cancer, it was discovered that women at risk of premenopausal breast cancer had IGF-1 concentrations twice as high as other women.

With prostate and bowel cancers, higher levels of IGF-1 were also found in men at greater risk of the disease.

Dr Renehan said: “This is an extremely robust finding across four major cancers that cause approximately 140,000 new cases each year in the UK.”

It seems that IGF-1 levels are raised by milk and red meat, but can be cut be exercise – and tomato juice. Dr Renehan said further research would be necessary before the test could be widely used and that this could take up to eight years.

Dr Renehan, who is a senior research fellow in surgery, said: “The laboratory tests used to measure these hormones are simple and inexpensive. We need to standardise the tests between laboratories indifferent countries, but there is a huge potential to use them to help reduce common cancers.”

It was accepted that the test might mean that there could be ethical and practical issues, in particular in connection with insurance, but the cancers are so common and so frequently the cause of death, that any way of improving prevention cannot be ignored.

Dr Renehan also said “We know that diet and lifestyle factors like smoking and physical activity can alter levels of these hormones.”

There is also the point that would everyone want to know their likelihood of developing a disease like cancer? Could insurers insist that people underwent tests prior to taking out life insurance?

Dr Richard Sullivan, of Cancer Research UK, was cautious, and warned that there had been attempts in the past to identify “biomarkers” for cancers and they had failed.

He said: “People should not expect miracles, as the development of cancer is influenced by many different factors. But there is a great deal of research into the effect of IGF-1during cancer treatment because it makes the tumour grow. If we can knock it out at this stage it could become an important therapy.”

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