FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The American Cancer Society estimates nearly 2 million Americans will receive a cancer diagnosis this year, and many of them will see a recurrence of their cancer after treatment.
In 2018, Bonnie Miller suddenly started experiencing back pain.
“And I don’t normally get sick, you know, no problems and I thought, oh maybe I have kidney stones or something,” Miller said.
Instead that pain turned out to be the result of a tumor between her kidney and her bladder, which was treated with chemotherapy and surgery.
In order to know if Miller’s cancer had recurred, the standard approach is to undergo imaging, but it has limitations.
“You cannot repeat scans even every three months, we do them every six months and the scan is read positive or negative,” said Dr. Georges Azzi, a hematologist-oncologist with Holy Cross Health.
He noted that in that six-month period, the cancer could recur or spread, and still go undetected on imaging.
A blood test called Signatera has become what he calls a “game changer.”
“This one is a continuous data stream and it’s a type of an early warning system for cancer recurrence,” Azzi said.
That allows specialists to intervene early, and perhaps stop the progression of the disease. Or if the test comes back negative, patients may be spared unnecessary and potentially toxic therapies.
“So it provides the patient with comfort in knowing what their status is and information is always a powerful tool,” Azzi said.
After trying a new treatment, the test showed that Miller’s cancer was responding well and she was eventually allowed to safely stop treatments.
“It gives you a really good feeling, being tested on a regular basis, so you know there’s nothing else growing in there and it does test for the cells from your tumor, so from that sense it gives you a real good feeling of hope that you can see your grandchildren get married, that sort of thing. So that’s the beauty of it all, you just keep going on,” she said.
There’s also a blood test called Gallari that can detect cancers that are otherwise hard to diagnose.