CONNECTICUT, U.S.A. – Jennifer Feenstra didn’t waste time worrying about how she, a fitness enthusiast who doesn’t smoke, could have contracted advanced, aggressive lung cancer five years ago. Rather, the 59-year-old Stamford, Connecticut, retired graphic designer was resolved to give it her all.
She underwent four rounds of intense chemotherapy and three years of extra medication after Yale Cancer Centre surgeons excised a portion of her right lung. She has had routine computerised tomography (CT) monitoring throughout, and fortunately, there has been no indication of recurrence—the word for when tumours return after therapy. She is currently in remission, but she is aware that a recurring tumour would not be shown on a scan for some time.
However, the precursors of malignant tumours manifest in the body well before imaging can identify them. Doctors are therefore thrilled by a more recent form of surveillance that can detect cancer cell recurrence in its earliest stages.
Although blood tests for cancer indicators have been used for many years, the most recent tests look for minute pieces of a specific malignancy’s DNA in a person’s blood. Researchers at Yale and other cancer centres are already observing fascinating outcomes from these tumour-informed tests, which represent a remarkable advancement in circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) investigation.
Where was the new medical study published
One of these tests identified recurrence in lung cancer patients a median of five months before anything showed up on a scan, which is significantly sooner than it is typically discovered, according to a March 2025 study published in Nature Medicine.
“I would want to do it if the test were offered to me.” “It would be an additional tool that could help me achieve my goal,” Feenstra states.
However, “potential” is the key word when discussing this technology. However, some doctors are rushing to adopt tests that are already available, so it’s getting lost.
According to health research firm iHealthcareAnalyst, sales of the category commonly referred to as liquid biopsies (including those that screen healthy individuals for early symptoms of cancer) might reach $20 billion (Sh2.5 trillion) globally in the coming years. According to the research, the top-selling target diseases of the prostate, stomach, colon, lung, and breast are “driven by the millions of newly diagnosed cancer patients worldwide”.
Why is the new medical technology exciting
Customising cancer treatment for each patient is the aim. Roy Herbst, the principal author of the Nature Medicine study and deputy head of the Yale Cancer Centre, adds:
“The technology is exciting because we can monitor outcomes in real time and determine who needs more or less treatment.”
For instance, doctors may prescribe Feenstra for a longer period if the technology finds cancer in a patient while they are taking post-chemo treatment. According to Herbst, patients may also decide to switch to a different medication for which they have not acquired a tolerance.
These tumour DNA tests are not subject to the same approval procedure as drugstore tests, as they are conducted by clinical laboratories. However, Herbst and other researchers argue that the test should not be made available to patients outside of clinical trials at this time.
“In particular, we don’t know all the dangers, so we need more data,” he says.
Whether the test extends a patient’s life is another unanswered question.
