early detection
Wearable mHealth Device Detects Abnormal Heart Rhythms Earlier
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Woman wearing a Zio patch
Credit: Adapted from JAMA Network Summary Video
As many as 6 million Americans experience a common type of irregular heartbeat, called atrial fibrillation (AFib), that can greatly increase their risk of stroke and heart failure [1]. There are several things that can be done to lower that risk, but the problem is that a lot of folks have no clue that their heart’s rhythm is out of whack!
So, what can we do to detect AFib and get people into treatment before it’s too late? New results from an NIH-funded study lend additional support to the idea that one answer may lie in wearable health technology: a wireless electrocardiogram (EKG) patch that can be used to monitor a person’s heart rate at home.
New ‘Liquid Biopsy’ Shows Early Promise in Detecting Cancer
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Liquid biopsy. Tumor cells shed protein and DNA into bloodstream for laboratory analysis and early cancer detection.
Early detection usually offers the best chance to beat cancer. Unfortunately, many tumors aren’t caught until they’ve grown relatively large and spread to other parts of the body. That’s why researchers have worked so tirelessly to develop new and more effective ways of screening for cancer as early as possible. One innovative approach, called “liquid biopsy,” screens for specific molecules that tumors release into the bloodstream.
Recently, an NIH-funded research team reported some encouraging results using a “universal” liquid biopsy called CancerSEEK [1]. By analyzing samples of a person’s blood for eight proteins and segments of 16 genes, CancerSEEK was able to detect most cases of eight different kinds of cancer, including some highly lethal forms—such as pancreatic, ovarian, and liver—that currently lack screening tests.
In a study of 1,005 people known to have one of eight early-stage tumor types, CancerSEEK detected the cancer in blood about 70 percent of the time, which is among the best performances to date for a blood test. Importantly, when CancerSEEK was performed on 812 healthy people without cancer, the test rarely delivered a false-positive result. The test can also be run relatively cheaply, at an estimated cost of less than $500.
Autism Spectrum Disorder: Progress Toward Earlier Diagnosis
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Stockbyte
Research shows that the roots of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) generally start early—most likely in the womb. That’s one more reason, on top of a large number of epidemiological studies, why current claims about the role of vaccines in causing autism can’t be right. But how early is ASD detectable? It’s a critical question, since early intervention has been shown to help limit the effects of autism. The problem is there’s currently no reliable way to detect ASD until around 18–24 months, when the social deficits and repetitive behaviors associated with the condition begin to appear.
Several months ago, an NIH-funded team offered promising evidence that it may be possible to detect ASD in high-risk 1-year-olds by shifting attention from how kids act to how their brains have grown [1]. Now, new evidence from that same team suggests that neurological signs of ASD might be detectable even earlier.
