There’s no doubt that preventing disease is better than treating it. Any new test that can spot those at risk of developing something such as cancer gets my vote.
A new DNA test does just that – and it would mean such a lot to millions of women who have NHS screening tests for cancer.
The test would identify those high-risk women who should be taking preventive medicines to stop breast cancer ever developing.
“We should rethink breast cancer screening as a prevention programme,” Jack Cuzick, of London University, said.
“Our vision is that when you go to your first screening appointment, you would not only get a mammogram but have a chance to get your risk assessed.”
Thousands of women would be offered a pill costing just 4p a day to halve their breast cancer risk.
Our current screening service only detects cancer but this test would become one that prevents it. A pilot scheme in Manchester which looked at 58,000 women, checked high-risk women every year, while women at lower risk were found to need checks only once every 10 years.
This scheme could be rolled out to other areas within five years.
Now to preventive drugs. About half a million women with a strong family history of breast cancer are eligible for drugs such as tamoxifen to cut their risk of developing the disease.
For post-menopausal women, anastrozole is a more effective drug for preventing cancer.
Professor Cuzick has developed a £50 test for assessing breast cancer risk. It is much more useful than current tests, which rely mainly on a family history.
The test flagged up 42 women as high risk and they all went on to get cancer. Professor Cuzick estimates the test could mean an additional 400,000 women falling into the high-risk category compared to present methods.
Manchester University’s Gareth Evans, leader of the scheme, said the high-risk group suffered twice as many cancers as those at low risk.
A follow-up study will now monitor the psychological impact and cost of giving high-risk women preventative drugs and annual screening, while those at lower risk come back less frequently.
“If we can show that works, we can go to the national screening programme and say ‘This is the right way to go’,” Professor Evans said.
Anne Mackie, director of programmes for the UK national screening committee, said: “These are exciting prospects and we wait with interest to see the final outcomes of the study.”