Les chimères du dépistage

Chroniques Génomiques

Cancer screening fantasies

UMR 7268 ADÉS, Aix-Marseille, Université/EFS/CNRS, Espace éthique méditerranéen, hôpital d’adultes la Timone, 264, rue Saint-Pierre, 13385 Marseille Cedex 05, France ; CoReBio PACA, case 901, parc scientifique de Luminy, 13288 Marseille Cedex 09, France

^* bertrand.jordan@univ-amu.fr ; brjordan@orange.fr

Abstract

The use of circulating tumour DNA to screen for cancer in asymptomatic individuals is the goal of Grail, initially set up by Illumina. This company is now raising a large amount of capital to develop this project on a much longer time scale than initially announced. Although it has access to cutting edge technology and is led by excellent scientists, the prospect for success in this application is rather bleak, mainly because of the extreme requirements for specificity in order to avoid overdiagnosis.