# OncoSeek

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

## TL;DR

SeekIn's low-cost protein blood test for 14 cancers, designed for countries that cannot afford DNA sequencing; it finds about six in ten cancers but flags about one in twelve people without cancer.

## Summary

OncoSeek combines seven protein tumour markers with age and sex. In the pooled validation (Shen et al., npj Precision Oncology 2025; 15,122 participants, 3,029 with cancer, seven centres in three countries) it had an area under the curve of 0.829, 58.4% sensitivity, 92.0% specificity and 70.6% tissue-of-origin accuracy in true positives, across 14 cancer types with sensitivities of 38.9% to 83.3%. The first study (Luan et al., eClinicalMedicine 2023; 7,565 participants plus a Johns Hopkins validation cohort) reported 51.7% sensitivity and 92.9% specificity.

At 92% specificity about 8 in 100 people without cancer test positive, far more than with DNA-based tests run at 98 to 99.5%, so in a screening population most positives would not be cancer. SeekIn's website claims 14 high-mortality cancers with the same 58.4% and 92.0% figures; CE marking was reported in September 2022 for 12 cancers. No NMPA or FDA status, price or registered trial was found.

## Fields

- Kind: Treatment
- Status: emerging
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Tags: test; mced; evidence:insufficient
- Brand: OncoSeek
- Modality: Multi-cancer blood test (seven protein tumour markers with artificial intelligence)
- Mechanism: Seven protein tumour markers measured on a standard clinical immunoassay analyser, combined with age and sex by an artificial intelligence model that gives a probability of cancer and a likely tissue of origin.

## 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.
- 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

- SeekIn: OncoSeek: https://www.seekincancer.com/oncoseek
- Shen et al., npj Precision Oncology 2025: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41698-025-01105-2
- Luan et al., eClinicalMedicine 2023: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.102041

## Connected records

- drugs: [SeekInCare](https://onco.cc/drugs/seekincare/)
- 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/)
- companies: [SeekIn](https://onco.cc/companies/seekin/)
- key papers: [A large-scale, multi-centre validation study of an AI-empowered blood-based test for multi-cancer early detection](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-oncoseek-npj-precis-oncol-2025/), [A panel of seven protein tumour markers for effective and affordable multi-cancer early detection by artificial intelligence: a large-scale and multicentre case-control study](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-oncoseek-eclinicalmedicine-2023/)

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