# Carcimun test

Source: https://onco.cc/drugs/carcimun-test/  
OnCo record `carcimun-test` (Treatment). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A German blood test that measures how blood proteins change shape; the only studies are small, run with the inventor, and do not say how often it finds early cancers.

## Summary

The Carcimun test detects conformational changes in plasma proteins through optical extinction. In a study of 172 people co-authored by the inventor (Walter et al., Frontiers in Oncology 2025: 80 healthy volunteers, 64 with cancers of various types, 28 with inflammatory conditions or benign tumours) it distinguished the groups with 90.6% sensitivity and 98.2% specificity. An earlier privately funded study (Salat et al., Precision Cancer Medicine 2022; 170 with cancer, 137 healthy) reported 88.8% sensitivity and 91.2% specificity and stated that details of the procedure could not be given because of patenting. No stage-by-stage figures, screening-population study, regulatory status, company details or price could be confirmed; the developer's website could not be reached on 29 October 2026.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: emerging
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Tags: test; mced; evidence:insufficient
- Brand: Carcimun
- Modality: Multi-cancer blood test (optical extinction of plasma protein conformation)
- Mechanism: Measures how plasma proteins change shape, read as optical extinction; the developers have not published the full procedure, citing patenting.

## Notes

- Evidence grade insufficient for the claim that taking this test reduces late-stage diagnosis or cancer deaths: no randomised trial of it has reported either outcome, and its published performance comes from case-control or single-arm studies. The only randomised result for any multi-cancer test, NHS-Galleri, did not show fewer stage III or IV cancers.
- Both published studies involve the inventor and use known cancers; neither reports stage I sensitivity.
- What a result means: a positive result is a reason for further tests, not a diagnosis; a negative result does not rule cancer out and does not replace the screening tests that have been shown to work (bowel, breast, cervical and, where eligible, lung screening).

## Sources

- Walter et al., Frontiers in Oncology 2025: https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2025.1520869
- Salat et al., Precision Cancer Medicine 2022: https://doi.org/10.21037/pcm-21-35

## Connected records

- technologies: [Liquid biopsy (ctDNA)](https://onco.cc/technologies/liquid-biopsy/), [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/), [Proteomics & phosphoproteomics](https://onco.cc/technologies/proteomics/)
- key papers: [Evaluation of an innovative multi-cancer early detection test: high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating cancer, inflammatory conditions, and healthy individuals](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-carcimun-front-oncol-2025/)

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