A methylation and protein classifier for multi-cancer early detection was evaluated on 6,352 samples (1,438 cancers, 4,914 non-cancers) spanning 21 tumour organ types and all stages, collected in a multi-centre prospective case-control study. At 98.5% specificity, overall sensitivity was 50.9%, rising from 15.4% at stage I to 85.5% at stage IV; excluding breast and prostate cancers, stage I sensitivity was 17.2%. An exploratory somatic mutation reflex step was examined for samples scoring between clear negative and positive thresholds.
Why it is interesting: Sensitivity rises steeply with stage and stays below one in five at stage I, even with breast and prostate cancers excluded (17.2%).