Cancer researchers have developed new tests that could reveal how certain cancers will progress or detect them years before diagnosis. The findings could help doctors decide when treatment is needed and identify some cancers before symptoms appear.
In September 2025, scientists from The Institute of Cancer Research, London and Barcelona’s IDIBAPS unveiled EVOFLUx. The test analyzes DNA changes to reconstruct how long a tumor has grown and how quickly it is developing.
Researchers tested EVOFLUx using data from more than 2,000 patients with different blood cancers. In chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, it accurately predicted which patients with faster-growing cancer would need treatment sooner.
Those patients had nearly four times the risk of requiring earlier treatment. Researchers said EVOFLUx could eventually help doctors monitor some cancers without repeated invasive biopsies.
“Our new test learns that path and predicts when treatment will be needed,” Professor Trevor Graham said on the test’s purpose. Clinical trials must still confirm how reliably its predictions work in patients.
Mass General Brigham researchers separately developed HPV-DeepSeek for HPV-associated head and neck cancer. The blood test searches for tiny fragments of tumor-linked HPV DNA circulating in the bloodstream.
It initially detected cancer-linked DNA in 22 of 28 samples from people later diagnosed with cancer. Machine learning raised detection to 27 cases, including samples taken up to 10 years before diagnosis.
All 28 healthy controls tested negative. Researchers are now validating HPV-DeepSeek in a larger blinded study involving hundreds of samples.
Both technologies remain under study, but their results could give doctors more time to detect, monitor, and treat certain cancers.
