False-positive results can lead to additional tests, anxiety and potentially surgical biopsies.Īlthough the science is promising, many experts caution that liquid biopsies remain unproven, and it is unclear how well these tests perform in people who are at high risk for cancer. In this study, the frequency of false-positive results produced by Galleri was an issue almost 30% of the positive tests were false positives (the tests were positive for cancer when the individuals had no cancer). The PATHFINDER study looked at people older than 50 who had an elevated risk for cancer because they were smokers, previously had cancer or had an inherited mutation that significantly increased their cancer risk. Early results of yet another study have also been reported by GRAIL.Once again, however, the test failed to dependably detect early-stage cancers, finding only about 17% of stage I cancers and 40% of stage II cancers. Galleri identified about 77% of stage III and 90% of stage IV cancers. Again, the sensitivity of the test increased with the stage of cancer. In another study published by GRAIL to validate Galleri, the test detected 51.5% of cancers.While the test more accurately detected cancers of increasing stage, it failed to detect almost 60% of stage I cancers. One study showed that Galleri detected 39% of stage I, 69% of stage II, 83% of stage III and 92% of stage IV cancers.While “Grail” aptly describes the hope and need for a single accurate test for multiple cancers, the media appears to be fixated more on the company’s name than the lack of scientific basis for its claims. While promising, the test is not yet proven to live up to its media headlines and hype. Galleri is being marketed as a way to detect over 50 types of cancer in the earliest stages when they are more treatable.
The test currently making headlines is Galleri, which was developed by the ambitiously named company Grail.
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