2026-09-23 オックスフォード大学
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09-23-blood-tests-could-identify-early-signs-of-cancer-years-before-diagnosis
- https://www.cell.com/cell-genomics/fulltext/S2666-979X(26)00226-0
診断前の血漿中無細胞DNAは、臨床診断の最大8年前から前立腺がんおよび乳がんのリスクの初期兆候を明らかにする Pre-diagnosis plasma cell-free DNA reveals early signatures of prostate and breast cancer risk up to eight years prior to clinical detection
Nicholas Cheng ∙ Tom W. Ouellette, ∙ Kimberly Skead ∙ … ∙ Daniel D. De Carvalho ∙ David Soave ∙ Philip Awadalla
Cell Genomics Published:September 21, 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2026.101364
Highlights
- Archived pre-diagnosis plasma spans 2 weeks to 9 years
- Regulatory cfDNA methylation signals are detected years before diagnosis
- Silencer methylation stratifies future prostate cancer risk
- Breast enhancer signals vary by subtype and disease stage
Summary
Genome-wide cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation profiling of 491 pre-diagnosis breast and prostate cancer plasma samples, some collected up to nine years before diagnosis, identifies early cancer-associated epigenetic alterations and predictive signatures. Differentially methylated regions were enriched in regulatory and repetitive elements and reflected cancer-tissue- and immune-cell-associated DNA methylation patterns. Logistic regression models trained on discovery set samples showed that cfDNA silencer-region methylation robustly predicted future prostate cancer, with high-risk individuals exhibiting a 3.55-fold increased hazard of developing prostate cancer. Enhancer hypermethylation modestly predicted incident breast cancer but strongly distinguished established late-stage breast cancers, with high-risk individuals showing a 2.3-fold increased hazard. These results highlight cfDNA methylation as a promising biomarker for early cancer risk prediction and surveillance.
