It bothers me that their control screen looks like Windows XP.
Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
21–30 of 101 posts
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#22Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
No, because you'll be telling 1 out of 20 healthy people they tested positive for cancer. Or, if it's 95% selectivity per test, which it probably is, 13 out of 20 healthy people will test positive.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
No, because you'll be telling 1 out of 20 healthy people they tested positive for cancer. Or, if it's 95% selectivity per test , which it probably is, 13 out of 20 healthy people will test positive.
You won't, of course. Just like with aids, a positive would be then double checked with a safer test.
EDIT: nevermind, I got educated by _Microft.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#24It bothers me that their control screen looks like Windows XP.
[deleted]
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
No, not necessarily. Check out these numbers: Sensitivity is what fraction of the affected people are actually found. Here: 90%, so 10% are missed. Specificity is what fraction of the unaffected people are detected as such. Here: 95%, so 5% wrongly detected ("false positives"). In Europe, there are 60 cases of lung cancer per 100 000 people. That makes 54 correctly detected per 100 000, missing 6 cases. That also mea…
Damn, I knew I sucked at probabilities, but I apparently I didn't know how much.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#26It bothers me that their control screen looks like Windows XP.
That's because it is Windows XP.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, not necessarily. Check out these numbers: Sensitivity is what fraction of the affected people are actually found. Here: 90%, so 10% are missed. Specificity is what fraction of the unaffected people are detected as such. Here: 95%, so 5% wrongly detected ("false positives"). In Europe, there are 60 cases of lung cancer per 100 000 people. That makes 54 correctly detected per 100 000, missing 6 cases. That also mea…
Damn, I knew I sucked at probabilities, but I apparently I didn't know how much.
We all suck at probabilities on an intuitive level. We better do the math and take the results seriously.
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#28Elsewhere it was mentioned it was 90% sensitivity and 95% selectivity which is not that good enough for something serious as cancer. Hopefully they can improve on it.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
I'd suggest reading these to get a better idea of the potential harms of screening tests in the asymptomatic population:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-skeptical-look-at-screeni...
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the_screening_test_t...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-case-against-early-...
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's very cheap, fast and convenient, then it's enough for at least screen the population regularly. Catching only part of the cancers is quite nice already.
No, not necessarily. Check out these numbers: Sensitivity is what fraction of the affected people are actually found. Here: 90%, so 10% are missed. Specificity is what fraction of the unaffected people are detected as such. Here: 95%, so 5% wrongly detected ("false positives"). In Europe, there are 60 cases of lung cancer per 100 000 people. That makes 54 correctly detected per 100 000, missing 6 cases. That also mea…
The article says 99% accuracy for 13 cancer types.
Some cancers like pancreatic are a death sentence because it's usually caught too late.
"Toshiba says its device tests for 13 cancer types with 99% accuracy from a single drop of blood"
"The test will be used to detect gastric, esophageal, lung, liver, biliary tract, pancreatic, bowel, ovarian, prostate, bladder and breast cancers as well as sarcoma and glioma."
Re: Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of blood
#30A number of companies are working on cfDNA (cell free DNA) approaches to early cancer detection. GRAIL and Freenome are probably notable examples.
Far fewer seem to be looking at miRNA, as Toshiba are here. I know of one other in Japan with a novel approach. If any Bioinformatics people would be interested email me and I’ll introduce them, they’re hiring.