Publish date: 7 June 2023
The NHS has welcomed promising results from a clinical research trial of a test that can find cancer early.
The Galleri blood test is currently being studied in an NHS clinical trial that people across Cheshire and Merseyside are taking part in. But a separate, smaller study has found that the Galleri test was correctly able to identify two out of every three cancers among 5,000 people who had visited their GP with symptoms.
The findings from the Simplify study have been presented at a US cancer conference and will be published in The Lancet Oncology journal. The study suggests that the test for more than 50 forms of cancer could help speed up diagnosis and fast-track patients for treatment.
A larger, separate NHS-Galleri clinical trial – involving 140,000 participants nationally and 22,000 from our sub-region – has been running since 2021, with blood samples taken over three years to research the test.
NHS National Director for Cancer, Professor Peter Johnson, said of the Simplify findings: “This study is the first step in testing a new way to identify cancer as quickly as possible, being pioneered by the NHS – earlier detection of cancer is vital and this test could help us to catch more cancers at an earlier stage and help save thousands of lives. It also shows once again that the NHS is at the forefront of cutting edge, innovative technology.”
Research has shown that the Galleri test could help to detect cancers that are typically difficult to identify early – such as head and neck, bowel, lung, pancreatic, and throat cancers. The test works by finding chemical changes in fragments of DNA that leak from tumours into the bloodstream.
If the clinical research trials are successful, the NHS in England plans to roll out the test to a further one million people during 2024 and 2025.
The NHS-Galleri trial is being run by Cancer Research UK and King’s College London Cancer Prevention Trials Unit in partnership with the NHS and healthcare company, GRAIL, which has developed the Galleri test.
The trial is operating with the support of eight NHS Cancer Alliances across England that span Cheshire and Merseyside, Greater Manchester, the North East and North Cumbria, West Midlands, East Midlands, East of England, Kent and Medway, and South East London.