A multicancer blood test appears to have met its initial goal of being an effective addition to standard screening for cancer, in a study of nearly 10,000 women.

The new tool, a multi-analyte blood test called DETECT-A, relies on DNA and protein biomarkers, Dr Kenneth Kinzler of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, US, and colleagues explain in Science.

To evaluate the test, the team restricted the study to women aged 65-75 years with no personal history of cancer and with a high adherence to standard-of-care screening.

The study had a special focus on ovarian cancer, which lacks standard of care screening and “typically has a favourable prognosis only when detected early,” the researchers noted.