{"entity":{"id":"paper-panseer-nat-commun-2020","kind":"paper","name":"Non-invasive early detection of cancer four years before conventional diagnosis using a blood test","aka":[],"tldr":"Singlera's PanSeer methylation test, run on stored blood from a Chinese cohort, flagged most people who went on to be diagnosed with one of five cancers within four years.","summary":"In the Taizhou Longitudinal Study, 123,115 healthy people gave plasma for storage and were followed for cancer. PanSeer, a circulating tumour DNA methylation test, was run on samples from 605 asymptomatic individuals, 191 of whom were later diagnosed with stomach, oesophageal, colorectal, lung or liver cancer within four years, plus 223 cancer patients and 200 tissues. It detected the five cancers in 88% (95% CI 80 to 93) of post-diagnosis patients at 96% specificity (93 to 98), and in 95% (89 to 98) of asymptomatic individuals later diagnosed; the authors state that future longitudinal studies are required to confirm this result.","asOf":"2026-10-29","links":[{"label":"Nature Communications 2020: PanSeer","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17316-z"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32694610/"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["early-detection"],"technologies":["mced","cfdna-methylation-testing"],"targets":[],"drugs":["panseer"],"companies":["singlera"],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":["nature-communications"],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"Nature Communications","year":2020,"doi":"10.1038/s41467-020-17316-z","pmid":"32694610","authors":"Chen X, Gole J, Gore A, et al.","paperType":"observational","findings":["88% sensitivity in post-diagnosis patients at 96% specificity.","95% of asymptomatic people later diagnosed were positive on stored samples."],"whatItMeans":"An eye-catching result from a nested case-control analysis of stored samples; it has not been reproduced in a prospective screening study.","caveats":["Nested case-control, 191 future cases; specificity of 96% would mean 4 in 100 false positives in screening.","Authors' own call for confirmation."],"changedPractice":false,"participants":1028},"route":"/key-papers/paper-panseer-nat-commun-2020/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"early-detection","kind":"section","name":"Early Detection & Screening","route":"/fronts/early-detection/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cfdna-methylation-testing","kind":"technology","name":"Cell-free DNA methylation tests","route":"/technologies/cfdna-methylation-testing/"},{"id":"mced","kind":"technology","name":"Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)","route":"/technologies/mced/"}],"drug":[{"id":"panseer","kind":"drug","name":"PanSeer","route":"/drugs/panseer/"}],"company":[{"id":"singlera","kind":"company","name":"Singlera Genomics","route":"/companies/singlera/"}],"journal":[{"id":"nature-communications","kind":"journal","name":"Nature Communications","route":"/journals/nature-communications/"}]}}