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Molecular cancer screening: in search of evidence

Nature Medicine volume 27, pages 1139–1142 (2021)Cite this article

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Cancer screening with germline genetic sequencing and liquid biopsy could facilitate early cancer detection. But testing if these technologies reduce the burden of cancer mortality will require rethinking how clinical trials are run.

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Fig. 1: Molecular technologies for cancer screening.
Fig. 2: Standard versus adaptive approach to regulation and assessment of novel cancer screening interventions.

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Acknowledgements

The viewpoints expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect official viewpoints of the US National Institutes of Health, The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, CMS or the companies mentioned. The authors appreciate helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article from S. Aldubayan, H. Hampel, A. Kesselheim and R. Weinberg. R.C.G. is supported by US National Institutes of Health grants HG006500, HD077671, HD090019, HG009922, HL143295 and TR003201 and by the Franca Sozzani Fund.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Sana Raoof

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Sana Raoof, Asaf Bitton & Robert C. Green

  3. OptumLabs, UnitedHealth Group, Minnetonka, MN, USA

    Caleb J. Kennedy

  4. Time BioVentures, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    D. A. Wallach

  5. Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Asaf Bitton & Robert C. Green

  6. Ariadne Labs, Boston, MA, USA

    Asaf Bitton & Robert C. Green

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  1. Sana Raoof
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Correspondence to Sana Raoof.

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Competing interests

S.R. receives consulting fees from Grail. C.J.K. is an employee of UnitedHealth Group and owns stock in the company. D.A.W. owns equity in BillionToOne, a company that provides non-invasive prenatal testing, and advises a fund with equity in Genome Medical. A.B. is a part-time senior advisor for primary care policy at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, advising the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus and Primary Care First programs. R.C.G. has received consulting fees from AIA, Genomic Life, Grail, OptumLabs and Verily, and is co-founder and advisor to Genome Medical.

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Raoof, S., Kennedy, C.J., Wallach, D.A. et al. Molecular cancer screening: in search of evidence. Nat Med 27, 1139–1142 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01431-5

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