Johns Hopkins has developed a lung cancer blood test

Powered by artificial intelligence, a new lung cancer blood test developed at Johns Hopkins, combined with other metrics, correctly identified 94% of cancer cases in almost 800 patients. The lung cancer blood test, published in Nature Communications, searches for tiny fragments of DNA released by the tumor cells. The AI looks for patterns in this shattered DNA, rather than looking for specific pieces of cancer DNA like other blood tests in development, New Atlas explained. Lung cancer kills the most people in the world, the authors note, "largely due to the late stage at diagnosis where treatments are less effective than at earlier stages" -- and lung cancer rates are increasing, worldwide. "We believe that a blood test, or'liquid biopsy,' for lung cancer could be a good way to enhance screening efforts, because it would be easy to do, broadly accessible, and cost-effective," study first author Dimitrios Mathios said. The DNA difference: Blood tests for cancer typically focus on finding pieces of mutated tumor DNA.