A BLOOD test could one day predict a person’s risk of 67 diseases up to ten years before they strike, scientists say. They identified proteins in the blood that could help in the early diagnosis of conditions such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma , motor neurone disease and conditions of the heart and lungs. Many of the conditions, some of them rare, can currently take months, even years to diagnose.
The research, published in Nature Medicine , used data from the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project. It has measurements for approximately 3,000 plasma proteins from a random selection of more than 40,000 Brits whose health records were available. The protein data and linked health records were used to create models for the 10-year likelihood of patients developing 218 common and rare diseases.
The model's ability to diagnose was better than those based on standard, clinically recorded information, such as cholesterol , kidney function and diabetes, for 67 diseases. For example, the researchers were able to pinpoint a specific blood protein seen at higher levels in Brits who were more likely to get multiple myeloma - a type of bone cancer - up to 10 years later. The authors pinpointed a ‘signature’ of between five and 20 proteins most important in predicting each disease.
Several proteins are already used to aid diagnosis, such as the prostate-specific antigen for prostate cancer. Most read in Health Lead author Professor Claudia, Queen Mary University of London, said: “Measuring.