{"entity":{"id":"carcimun-test","kind":"drug","name":"Carcimun test","aka":[],"tldr":"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.","status":"emerging","asOf":"2026-10-29","links":[{"label":"Walter et al., Frontiers in Oncology 2025","url":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2025.1520869"},{"label":"Salat et al., Precision Cancer Medicine 2022","url":"https://doi.org/10.21037/pcm-21-35"}],"tags":["test","mced","evidence:insufficient"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["mced","liquid-biopsy","proteomics"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-carcimun-front-oncol-2025"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"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)."],"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.","approvals":[],"mechanismSteps":[],"toxicity":[],"access":[],"regulatoryEvents":[]},"route":"/drugs/carcimun-test/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"liquid-biopsy","kind":"technology","name":"Liquid biopsy (ctDNA)","route":"/technologies/liquid-biopsy/"},{"id":"mced","kind":"technology","name":"Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)","route":"/technologies/mced/"},{"id":"proteomics","kind":"technology","name":"Proteomics & phosphoproteomics","route":"/technologies/proteomics/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-carcimun-front-oncol-2025","kind":"paper","name":"Evaluation of an innovative multi-cancer early detection test: high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating cancer, inflammatory conditions, and healthy individuals","route":"/key-papers/paper-carcimun-front-oncol-2025/"}]}}