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New cancer test can detect the disease in 10 minutes, researchers say

By Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

Scientist at the University of Queensland say they've developed a cheap and universal blood test that can detect cancer in 10 minutes. Photo: PIxabay

By Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

QUEENSLAND, Australia — Scientists in Australia have developed a universal blood test for cancer that can detect the disease in 10 minutes.

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The test could revolutionize the way doctors test for cancer, according to researchers at the University of Queensland. They discovered that in fluid, cancer develops an unusual DNA structure, CNN reported. The test determines the presence of cancer by identifying that structure and could detect the presence of cancer much earlier than current diagnostic methods, scientists said.

"Discovering that cancerous DNA molecules formed entirely different 3D nanostructures from normal circulating DNA was a breakthrough that has enabled an entirely new approach to detect cancer non-invasively in any tissue type including blood," professor Matt Trau said in a statement to CNN.

"This led to the creation of inexpensive and portable detection devices that could eventually be used as a diagnostic tool, possibly with a mobile phone," Trau said.

The test uses a fluid that changes color to reveal within 10 minutes whether a person has malignant cancer cells in his or her body, The Guardian reported.

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“A major advantage of this technique is that it is very cheap and extremely simple to do, so it could be adopted in the clinic quite easily,” University of Queensland researcher Laura Carrascosa told the newspaper.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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