Khannah Grace was 31 when told she had a mystery cancer and given one to five years to live. There is hope a new blood test will spare patients the anguish of ongoing uncertainty.
After seeking medical help for unexplained back pain in 2018, doctors told the then 31-year-old that she had cancer, but they did not know what type.
This is because identifying the primary cancer guides treatment, and without an exact diagnosis, treatment often involves trial and error. But around one in three of these tests are unsuccessful because patients’ tumour tissues have degraded to a point where it does not contain enough DNA for testing.
Cancer Council NSW says there are several reasons why a primary cancer may be difficult to detect. These include the primary cancer being too small to be easily picked up or a person’s immune system wiping out a primary cancer but not the secondary cancer. Professor Linda Mileshkin, who runs the CUP clinic at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, said patients with a CUP diagnosis were often traumatised by the uncertainty of their condition. She said they also fell through the cracks in our health system.
Mileshkin said a primary cancer diagnosis made a world of difference to patients by boosting their confidence in doctors, helping them access the best treatment and linking them to support groups. “They’re usually much happier when they know that the doctor actually knows what’s going on,” she said.
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