AI vs the Big C … Plus, Hearing Health & Staying Cool

🔬Spotting Tomorrow’s Tumors Today

When it comes to cancer, timing is everything, and early detection saves lives. But what if “early” could mean before it even starts?  SN‘s Meghan Rosen unveils exciting new research into ​pre-diagnosis DNA detection from simple blood samples​, hinting at a future where we preempt cancer’s very inception. As we wait for the new technology to develop, we wanted to explore how AI is accelerating the transformative leap in cancer detection using liquid biopsies (laboratory tests done on a sample of blood, urine, or other body fluid to look for cancer cells from a tumor or small pieces of DNA, RNA, or other molecules).

🕵️‍♀️The Microscopic Clues in Your Bloodstream

Tumor cells shed DNA fragments into the bloodstream. In a study led by Yuxuan Wang, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, researchers found they could identify pre-cancerous DNA as far as three years in advance of a diagnosis by testing teaspoon-sized amounts of blood plasma. This means evidence of pre-cancer can be identified even before a tumor is large enough to be detected by traditional imaging.