New Test Could Find Cancer Earlier
新的检测手段能早期发现癌症
Cancer is a leading cause of death around the world.
癌症是世界上导致死亡的主要原因。
When it comes to cancer, the sooner you know you have it, the better your chances of surviving.
当癌症袭来时，你发现得越早，存活率越高。
A new blood test could change the way doctors and researchers find cancer in patients. Researchers say the test could provide clues to the early forms of the disease.
Scientists at the University of Swansea in Wales came up with the idea.
一项新的血液测试可能改变医生和研究者发现患者癌症的方法。研究者说这项检测能够提供癌症早期的一些线索。
Swansea in Wales大学的科学家们提出了这种思路。
Gareth Jenkins is a professor at the university. He says he and his team did not look for cancer. They instead looked for a by-product of cancer. They looked for, what Jenkins calls, the collateral damage of cancer – the damage left by the disease.
Gareth Jenkins是一个大学教授。他说他和他的团队没有去搜寻癌症。相反，他们只是寻找癌症的副产品。他们寻找的是疾病留下的损害，Jenkins称之为癌症的间接性损伤。
In this case, the by-product was mutated red blood cells.
在这些实例中，这些副产品是红细胞产生的变异。
"In this blood test we don't measure the presence of cancer, we measure the presence of mutated red blood cells which are the collateral damage that occurs -- a by-product of the cancer developing."
"在这项血液测试中，我们不去测量癌细胞的存在，我们是测量变异的红细胞的存在，即癌症导致的间接性损伤---癌症发展的副产品。"
The researchers used normal laboratory equipment to perform the tests. This equipment looks for changes in the structure of millions of red blood cells. Those mutated cells lack a surface protein that healthy cells normally have.
研究者用常规的实验设备去操作这项实验。这些设备用于寻找数百万红细胞的结构发生的变异。这些变异的细胞缺乏正常细胞拥有的一种表面蛋白质。
"The essence of the test is looking for very rare cells which have picked up a mutation. The number of mutated red blood cells in a healthy person are around 5 or so mutant cells per million; so, you have to look at millions of red blood cells to detect those rare events. These numbers increase in cancer patients -- they go up to 40 or 50 mutants on average."
试验的实质是搜寻极为稀少并已变异的细胞。一个正常人变异的红细胞数量是百万分之五左右；所以，你不得不去搜寻数百万的红细胞，以便探寻这些稀有的细胞。在癌症患者中，这些细胞的数量增加了---其平均数量达到了百万分之四十到五十。
The researchers tested blood from about 300 people, all of whom have cancer of the esophagus. Patients with esophageal cancer have high levels of mutated red blood cells. Jenkins says that at this point he is not sure if other cancers would produce similar results.
研究者从300个均患有食道癌的病人中进行血检。食道癌患者红细胞变异的数量达到很高的水平。Jenkins表述道，从这点来看，其他癌症是否能产生相同数量的变异细胞，不太确定。
"We've only been looking at esophageal cancer patients. ‘Do other types of cancer patients have high levels of these mutant red blood cells as well?’ We don't know the answer to that question at present."
“我们现在仅观察了食道癌患者。‘至于其他癌症患者是否也同样有如此多的变异红细胞?’目前我们仍无答案。”
The hope is that the new test and other non-invasive methods could one day become part of commonly used medical methods. He says that using a battery, or series, of tests will be the best way to find out if a person has cancer.
这项新的测试和其他一些非侵入性的检测手段，将来某一天有望成为普及的医疗检测方法。他说，用一系列这样的检测，将成为发现某人是否患癌的最好方法。
"A battery of tests, based on different principles looking at blood, looking at different bodily fluids -- breath, urine -- will be the best way of getting a comprehensive view of whether an individual might or might not have cancer."
These new technologies could save millions of lives.
这一系列的基于不同原理的测试，正在观测血液和体内不同的体液，如气息、尿液，将成为全方位观测个体是否患癌或不患癌的最好方法。
这些新技术能够挽救百万人的生命。
作者:佚名 翻译:悬壶医心
来源:美国之音健康频道