Blood Test To Spot Cancer to be studied.

According to an article by the Associated Press writer Marilynn Marchione a BLOOD TEST so sensitive that can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor's office.

Boston scientists who invented the test and health care giant Johnson & Johnson announced that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centers also will start studies using the experimental test this year.

Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumor has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung.

Initially, doctors want to use the test to try to predict what treatments would be best for each patient's tumor and find out quickly if they are working.

"This is like a liquid biopsy" that avoids painful tissue sampling and may give a better way to monitor patients than periodic imaging scans, said Dr Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's cancer center and one of the test's inventors.

Ultimately, the test may offer a way to screen for cancer besides the mammograms, colonoscopies, and other less-than-ideal methods used now.

"There's a lot of potential here, and that's why there's a lot of excitement," said Dr Mark Kris, lung cancer chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He had no role in developing the test, but Sloan-Kettering is one of the sites that will study it this year.

Eat Veggies, Fight Cancer?

A nine-year study shows that smokers who ate a wide variety of fruits and vegetables lowered their risk of developing lung cancer compared with those eating a smaller range of these foods.

The quantity did not seem to matter, leading scientist to speculate that variety, not volume, may increase your exposure to diverse and potentially powerful anticancer compounds, which still have not been identified.

This article by Alice Park, for Time Magazine, September 13th should tell everyone that fruits and vegetables are essential to your health and well being. If it can be found to lower the chances of someone that is a smoker from getting lung cancer, maybe it works with other cancers.

You can have a say in what you put in your body and how it helps your body work. Omega-3s and vitamin D have already been found to help fight breast cancer and you can get these from fruits, vegetables and are easy to add to your diet. Selenium has been found to fight bladder cancer and one of the best sources is Brazil nut.

To your health.

Leigh