New breast cancer test will only require urine sample

cp418

https://theaggie.org/2016/01/27/uc-davis-alumna-br...

MusicLover

This sounds great!

leggo

I'm going to have to play devil's advocate on this one. I'm only speaking for myself here, but I knew something was terribly wrong before both my Stage 3 diagnosis and Stage IV diagnosis (and thyroid cancer). Unfortunately, all these awesome tests didn't show anything. If they can't tell from bloodwork (which is certainly a better indicator of what's floating around in plasma), a urine test isn't going to fair any better. As far as I'm concerned, blood tests are indiscriminate enough, so someone thinks urine is a good idea? So dumb, imho. I've known plenty of people who's blood labs came back just fine, myself included, but so much was already brewing.

Fallleaves

My thoughts on blood tests and urine tests have changed. I used to think they would be an improvement, but now I think we would just have more overtreatment like with prostate cancer. I think they have backed off of PSA testing a bit because of that. Also, once cancer is detected, you have to find it, and that seems to be the hard part. It's hard to see in the body, even with mammograms, US, and MRI's. My M-I-L recently had surgery for DCIS and microinvasive IDC. The biopsy found both. Then she had an MRI, after which she had surgery. They found nothing! She had a two hour surgery. What did they see on the MRI to think they still needed to operate? Or did they operate because they didn't feel they could trust the MRI? I think we really need better imaging.

leggo

I feel the opposite, but I do understand your point. In my case, for example, all those liver blood tests......it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, at which point I was really sick and onc had to go to bat for a liver CT. Oops, sorry, you're liver is a mess. Thanks! Again, jmho, but spending research dollars on this, pardon my language, bullshit, is one of the big reasons we never get anywhere. Done ranting.

wallycat

I think any new techniques are great; we are not obligated to use them. The key here also indicated comparing yourself against yourself, like mammograms that look for changes. It would be great to get 100% detection, but baby steps are better than no steps.

My only concern is that if something is detected...now you have to dig and figure out where it could be....that is the agonizing aspect of this.