Testing time for Durisch

Yesterday was a singularly stressful day.

I had been volunteered to undertake the new DR-70 cancer screening test available from this week at Surescreen Diagnostics.

For a fee of £90, people can take a blood test that is analysed for a protein which is indicative of cancer.

It is claimed to be 95 per cent accurate and the results are known within three days.

Results due later
What if my test proved positive? I could find myself at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary or Derby City General Hospital next week. I may need scans or X-rays or perhaps even an exploratory operation to find out where a cancer may be lurking anywhere in my body.

And I could have a cancer which is inoperable and basically untreatable. Am I better off knowing that? Would blissful ignorance not be preferable?

On the other hand, discovering a cancer at a very early stage could save my life.

I am not a young man and, for decades, I have poisoned my lungs with tobacco smoke and pickled my liver with alcohol.

I could also usefully lose some weight. Basically, I fall short by some way of being a perfect physical specimen. And there is a history of cancer in my family.

I arrived at the Surescreen offices with considerable trepidation. Then phlebotomist Dorothy Patterson (58) took 7.5 ml of my precious (to me) blood for testing.

Christine Flanigan (53), the firm's cancer testing project manager, said: "We have had 30 patients here in Derby yesterday and today and the phone is ringing all the time.

"Often they have their own doubts and suspicions. They don't come on a whim." But what happens if someone gets a positive result and their general practitioner is unsympathetic?

"There is no easy answer to that," she said. "But because we are a private company, we can't refer them to a GP. We would do everything that we can to support them and we can help with treatment - but it would be private treatment."

As somebody who scores near the top of any cancer risk league table, I awaited the result with great trepidation.

Yesterday I made the call. I was told that my test gave a reading of 0.07 micrograms per ml Ð an extremely low level. The test is negative.

I had anticipated that if fortune favoured me and the news was good, I would experience a flush of euphoria. That did not happen. Instead, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

Cancer pioneer hopes for firm
A Derby biotechnology firm hopes to sell a revolutionary test that detects most forms of cancer before symptoms appear.

Thousands of lives could be saved in Britain each year by the DR-70 test, hailed by the Cancer Research Campaign as the “holy grail”.

The test detects cancer antibodies in blood, which are produced when a tumour starts growing – giving an early warning of the disease and buying time for treatment.

It would be of particular benefit against cancers with no early symptoms which are untreatable by the time they are diagnosed.

Surescreen Diagnostics, based in Chester Green, has acquired the rights to sell the test in the UK and hopes to launch it in the spring, pending Government approval.

Jim Campbell, managing director of the Prime Parkway company, said: “The test could be used for many types of cancer, including those of the lungs, breast, stomach, ovaries and cervix.

“It could be very useful for people with a family history of cancer, or for those at risk, such as smokers or people who have been in contact with asbestos or other cancer-causing chemicals.”

The test requires just two millilitres of blood and results are available in 24 hours.

Results will only show that the patient has cancer, not which type of cancer it is, so a positive result would need to be followed up by further specific tests.

Californian firm AMDL has developed the test but Surescreen has been involved since the early stages of its development.

It costs £50 to carry out and Mr Campbell envisages that it would o