The FDA is cracking down on a blood test that claims to detect early signs of cancer in high-risk individuals. Pathway Genomics, makers of the CancerIntercept Detect tool, is under investigation by the FDA, which claims that the screening tool is unapproved, not backed by adequate scientific studies, and therefore could be harmful to the public.
When it comes to fighting suicide, knowing who is at risk can be tricky and, moreover, a very subjective process. Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine are trying to bring a level of objectivity into the search for those at high risk of attempting suicide - in the form of a simple blood test.
A simple blood test that offers early detection of cancer in the human body has long eluded medical researchers, but a team at UCLA is getting closer. By blending an ultra-fast camera and a powerful optical microscope with software that can process the data they produce at extremely high speeds, the team hopes it can spot circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that have broken away from cancerous tumors in blood samples, potentially making early cancer detection as simple as taking a blood draw.
The jury is still out, in many respects, on exactly what depression is and how it should be treated, but clinically speaking it is usually diagnosed in a psychological rather than a physiological manner - that is, via a questionnaire that is given to patients rather than by some method of empirical testing. But The Atlantic reports that a new study has shown that blood tests can diagnose depression - a finding that could change the way depression is both diagnosed and viewed by patients.
