First results from the NHS-Galleri trial announced

The NHS-Galleri trial is a research study to see how well the Galleri blood test works at a large scale in the NHS. The blood test can detect a ‘signal’ shared by many different types of cancer in a sample of a person’s blood.

The aim of the trial is to see if using the Galleri test alongside existing cancer screening can help to find cancer early. Finding cancer early usually means more treatment options and better outcomes.

More than 142,000 volunteers aged 50–77 from across England took part in the trial. They provided three blood samples over two years at mobile clinics stationed in more than 150 locations across England.

Presented at annual American Society for Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago last week, the first results have shown that substantially fewer of the most advanced cancers were diagnosed in people screened yearly with a MCED blood test.

Furthermore, there was no difference overall in the number of people diagnosed with late-stage cancer overall (stage 3 and stage 4 cancers together) between people who had the test and those who did not, and there was a trend towards fewer late stage cancers the second and third time people had the blood test.

Professor Charles Swanton (UCL Cancer Institute), Co-Chief Investigator for the NHS-Galleri trial, said: “As a lung cancer doctor, I see the clinical importance of diagnosing cancer at an earlier stage, when treatment is more likely to be curative. The NHS-Galleri trial tested whether adding the Galleri blood test to NHS screening could reduce the combined number of cancers diagnosed at stage 3 or 4 over three years. The primary endpoint was not met.”

He added: “However, a pre-specified secondary endpoint did show a greater than 20% reduction in stage 4 cancers, with the effect strengthening by the third year of screening. The stage 4 reduction is clinically meaningful because for many cancers there is a real gulf in outlook between a stage 4 diagnosis and one caught earlier. The hope is that for more patients the conversation can be about treating cancer with curative intent rather than managing it palliatively.”

Alongside his role as a leader at the UCL Cancer Institute, Professor Swanton is Chief Clinician at Cancer Research UK, Royal Society Napier Professor of Cancer, and deputy clinical director at the Francis Crick Institute. He also co-directs CRUK’s Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence and treats patients at UCLH.

Further results of the trial showed that fewer cancers were detected in an emergency situation, such as in A&E, among people who had the test. The results showed a 25% reduction in cancers detected in an emergency setting among those who received the test.

Using the test also meant that more cancers were found by screening than by other ways, and the blood test was shown to be safe and accurate at screening for cancer. Just over half of participants with a positive Galleri test result were diagnosed with cancer, indicating a high level of accuracy for a screening test.

Professor Richard Neal, Co-Chief Investigator for the NHS-Galleri trial and Primary Care Cancer Research at the University of Exeter, said: “I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the people who took part in this landmark trial. The first results from the trial have helped us understand more about how the test may help find cancers earlier. They have also helped us learn more about how cancers develop and about this type of blood test.

“These results are just the start of what we will learn from this trial, which is the first and biggest of its kind. The trial and everything that we are discovering from the data would not have been possible without your support.”

Moving forward, researchers will continue to analyse the data over the coming months and years. Future analyses will examine the acceptability of this type of screening, the psychological impact of a positive test result, and, with longer follow-up, whether annual screening with a multicancer blood test can reduce cancer mortality. The NHS and other health organisations will review the results in detail to understand how this type of test could be used in the future.

Links

• NHS-Galleri trial
• Professor Charles Swanton's academic profile
• UCL Cancer Institute
• UCL Medical Sciences

Images

• Blood test sample tubes. Credit: twinsterphoto (iStock)

Media contact 

Tom Cramp

T: +447586 711698

E: t.cramp@ucl.ac.uk