The Missed Signal: Rethinking How We Detect Cancer and Chronic Disease

Abstract

The detection of cancer and chronic disease is a challenge for contemporary medicine, with delays in diagnosis often contributing to morbidity and mortality. The traditional methods for the detection of cancer are often invasive, insensitive to the early stages of cancer and often only detect cancer in a subset of the population. This article examines emerging methods for the detection of cancer and chronic disease, focusing on technologies like liquid biopsy, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests and artificial intelligence-aided diagnostics. While current technologies have led to the discovery of biomarkers for early-stage cancer that was previously undetectable through conventional screening methods, challenges in the detection of low-abundance ctDNA, costs of the technologies, lack of validation of these technologies and the disparities in the access to these technologies limit their application. However, these technologies have the potential to revolutionize the detection of cancer and chronic disease and this paper proposes a new structure for the detection of cancer and chronic disease that addresses these challenges.