Scientists have developed a blood test -- combining "liquid biopsy" with artificial intelligence -- that can detect cancer at its earliest stages.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, hold promise of being able to treat the disease long before symptoms appear, said Daniel De Carvalho, a senior scientist at University Health Network in Canada.
"A major problem in cancer is how to detect it early. It has been a 'needle in the haystack' problem of how to find that one-in-a-billion cancer-specific mutation in the blood, especially at earlier stages, where the amount of tumour DNA in the blood is minimal," said Carvalho.