A blood test that could scan for dozens of cancers at once is being eyed in Congress as a way to detect cancers earlier, minimize the discomfort of cancer treatments and help patients live longer.
Currently, only five routine screenings are recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the independent panel that largely influences which services Medicare and private insurance companies will pay for.
However, Congress is now considering a bill — the Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act — that would enable Medicare to consider multicancer early detection tests as an effective, affordable screening tool to detect a wide range of cancers.
Each year, half a million adults are diagnosed with late stage cancers, but the American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for many cancers is over 90% when detected early.
“We have breast cancer screening, colorectal, lung cancer screening, prostate and cervical cancer,” said Jody Hoyos, CEO of the Alexandria, Virginia-based Prevent Cancer Foundation.
The nonprofit’s website breaks down by age the potential screenings and preventions that patients should discuss with their health care providers.
While some people think of cancer as a single disease, “It’s really 200 different diseases, and we have routine screenings for five of those cancer types,” Hoyos said.
Cancer screening can help detect some cancers early, before they’ve had a chance to grow and spread. But, according to Hoyos, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is the entity that oversees Medicare, does not have a mechanism to review these tests for coverage.
Another benefit of the multicancer early detection tests is that they can detect cancers that are more difficult to screen.
“These tests can detect many types of cancers by looking for a cancer signal in the blood,” Hoyos said. “They have the ability to detect highly aggressive cancers, like pancreatic cancer or ovarian cancer, which we don’t have routine screenings for now.”
Age is the leading risk factor for cancer, with 66 being the median age for a cancer diagnosis. According to the bill: “The benefits of early cancer detection to Medicare beneficiaries have been limited to five cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program, 71 percent of the 600,000 cancer deaths each year are from types of cancer without a Medicare-covered early detection test.”
Multicancer early detection tests have not yet been approved by the FDA, Hoyos said.
“We want to make sure that there is not further delay for older Americans to get access, once there’s FDA approval.”
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