# Hallmark Circulating Tumor-Associated Cell Clusters Signify 230 Times Higher One-Year Cancer Risk

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-c-etac-one-year-risk-cancer-prev-res-2021/  
OnCo record `paper-c-etac-one-year-risk-cancer-prev-res-2021` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Datar Cancer Genetics followed people without symptoms for a year after its tumour-cell-cluster blood test and reported that those with a positive result were far more likely to be diagnosed with cancer.

## Summary

Ranade and colleagues (with Datar Cancer Genetics, Nashik) report one-year follow-up of the asymptomatic cohort from the company's earlier work (16,134 people, including 10,625 asymptomatic, among whom C-ETACs were found in 3.6%). People with detectable circulating ensembles of tumour-associated cells had a 230-fold higher one-year cancer risk than those without (P < 0.00001). In 4,419 symptomatic people later confirmed to have cancer, C-ETACs were detected in 4,101 (92.8%).

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-03
- Journal: Cancer Prevention Research
- Year: 2021
- DOI: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-20-0322
- Authors: Ranade A, Bhatt A, Page R, Limaye S, et al.
- Findings: C-ETAC-positive asymptomatic people: 230-fold higher one-year cancer risk.; C-ETACs detected in 92.8% of 4,419 symptomatic people with confirmed cancer.
- What it means: A relative risk does not say what share of positive results turned out to be cancer; with about 3.6% of people without symptoms testing positive, most positives would still not be cancer in a screening population.
- Caveats: The abstract gives no positive predictive value or count of cancers among positives.; Datar Cancer Genetics staff among authors.

## Sources

- Cancer Prevention Research 2021: https://doi.org/10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-20-0322
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32958586/

## Connected records

- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/)
- technologies: [Circulating tumour cell capture](https://onco.cc/technologies/ctc-capture/), [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/)
- drugs: [Trucheck Intelli](https://onco.cc/drugs/trucheck-intelli/)
- companies: [Datar Cancer Genetics](https://onco.cc/companies/datar-cancer-genetics/)
- journals: [Cancer prevention research](https://onco.cc/journals/cancer-prevention-research/)

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