Cancer

UK Trials Blood Test That Can Detect 12 Cancers With 99% Accuracy

Published APR 23 2025

Story

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The Facts

The U.K. government has awarded £2.4 million ($3.18 million) to develop miONCO-Dx, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven blood test that can detect 12 common and lethal cancers, including bowel, lung, and breast cancers, with 99% accuracy.
Daily Mirror
Express.co.uk
The Telegraph
The technology, developed by Xgenera and the University of Southampton, requires only 10-15 drops of blood for analysis. It works by measuring microRNA in blood samples and using AI to identify the presence and location of cancer in the body.
Daily Mail
GB News
The test has been developed using data from over 20,000 patients, and it will now enter a clinical trial involving 8,000 patients to validate its effectiveness for potential National Health Service (NHS) implementation within two years.
GB News
GOV.UK
Bowel cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in the UK with over 42,000 diagnoses annually, has a 90% survival rate when detected at stage 1 compared to just 10% at stage 4.
Sky News
GOV.UK
If successful, the test could eliminate the need for invasive procedures like biopsies and colonoscopies, potentially save NHS resources, and provide earlier cancer detection when survival rates are highest.
GOV.UK
Express.co.uk
The announcement coincides with the opening of the Bowelbabe Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, named in memory of Dame Deborah James, who died of bowel cancer at age 40 in 2022. This also comes as the UK's National Health Service (NHS) was cleared to use gene-editing therapy to treat the blood disorder beta thalassemia last year.
The Standard
Daily Mirror

Sources Split

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The Spin

Narrative A

This blood test is a game-changing solution to cancer detection. It offers a quick, cost-effective, and noninvasive method that could transform early diagnosis, save countless lives through population-wide screening programs, and significantly reduce the burden on healthcare resources.

GB News

Narrative B

The technology still requires extensive validation through large-scale trials to ensure its real-world effectiveness and minimize the risk of false positives, which could cause unnecessary psychological harm and anxiety to patients wrongly diagnosed with cancer.

Daily Mirror