Blood Drug Testing

What types of cancer are detected by blood tests?

Without actually looking for a certain kind of cancer, what kind of cancer would be detected by a normal, check-up type of blood work?

Public Comments

1. A blood test in my family detected leukaemia. There was an irregularity in the number of red and white cells. I tell everyone I know to have a blood test now. Be strong. . . .better to know and seek immediate treatment if it is required.
2. usually the blood test will show an irregular count in your white and red cells, i think this is for most all cancers, the test will show that your body is rejecting something,
3. Regular blood tests normally include a "Full Blood Count" and "Liver Function Test". Any extreme irregularities in these tests would warrent further testing - but would not in itself immediately highlight cancer. If your white blood cell count was down, for example, this is not necessarily a sign you have leukaemia - the doctor would put together your whole profile, including other symptoms such as easy bruising, lethargy, fatigue etc and more specific tests (such as a bone marrow biopsy) would be required to confirm diagnosis. Most cancer blood screening is actually specific tests. One such example is PSA - which is used to monitor men for Prostate cancer. When men start screening for prostate cancer (anywhere from 40+ depending on family history - every man over 50 should be regularly screened) they will have a prostate physical examination and a screening blood test. Honestly, most men obviously prefer to have a blood test every year rather than the physical! If the Prostate Serum Antigen (PSA) level comes back high, this is a trigger that something is wrong with the Prostate and further tests are carried out. Other cancers that can be detected by blood test are Ovarian cancer. This is a very silent cancer, which is often not detected until very advanced as often there are no obvious physical signs. A simple blood test for the CA125 marker will show something is amiss if it returns a high reading. Again, further tests would be required to detect if there is cancer and where it is. This test has improved since 1996 - and is now sometimes referred to as CA125-II There are non-cancerous causes of CA125 being elevated as well - so an abnormally high reading is not automatically a diagnosis.