This television advertisement, aired during American football's Super Bowl last month, promotes a simple blood test that promises to detect the early signs of more than 50 cancer types ' or provide the reassurance of an all-clear. The test, called Galleri, is one of around 40 such multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests that are either in development or already on sale. But very few have been through randomized controlled trials (RCTs) ' which are considered the gold standard of testing ' and none has received approval from regulators. Last month, the developers of the Galleri test, biotechnology company Grail in Menlo Park, California, released some details from the first RCT of an MCED test. The trial, run in collaboration with the UK National Health Service (NHS), aimed to find out whether Galleri can improve outcomes by reducing the number of cancers detected at advanced stages, when used alongside existing screening programmes ' but the results indicate that the test did not...
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