Patients increasingly ask about blood tests marketed as detecting many cancers at once. A negative result does not rule cancer out, and a positive result needs imaging and often biopsy to find, or fail to find, a cancer.
Ask what the patient hopes the test will tell them, keep established screening up to date, and make sure new symptoms are investigated on their merits.
- Keep established cervical, breast and colorectal screening up to date regardless of any blood test.
- Explain that a negative multicancer test does not exclude cancer.
- Explain that a positive result often leads to further imaging and procedures.
- Investigate new symptoms on their own merits, whatever a previous blood test showed.
Why it matters
A reassuring blood test can delay the investigation of a symptom that matters.
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