本集內容

Cancer blood test trial 英國啟動癌癥血檢臨床測試

學習要點

有關 “medicine（醫學）” 的詞匯

邊看邊答

What was wrong with previous tests?

文字稿

In a retail park in Runcorn in Cheshire [England], one of the world’s largest clinical trials is getting underway. 

在英格蘭柴郡朗科恩一個零售商業園內，世界上規模最大的臨床試驗之一正在進行中。

The first of thousands of volunteers are giving blood samples – to be tested for the presence of tiny traces of DNA linked to tumours – a warning of future disease.

首批數千名志愿者正在提供血樣，以檢測其中是否存在與腫瘤相關的微量 DNA（脫氧核糖核酸），這是對未來患病可能的一種警告。

Volunteers like Stuart, a serving fire brigade officer.

其中一位志愿者是現役消防員斯圖爾特。

Stuart Devereux, trial volunteer
It seemed a good opportunity to actually become involved with something. Sadly, most of us are touched by cancer at some time in our lives. I thought, well, actually early detection is one thing that is going to help in our armoury against that.

斯圖爾特·德弗羅       試驗志愿者
“這看上去是個好機會，讓我能真正參與到有意義的事情中去。不幸的是，我們當中的大多數人一生中都會在某個時候被癌癥所影響。我想，其實盡早查出癌癥是幫我們對抗這種情況的一種方式。”

Detecting and treating cancer early is the key to a successful recovery. But some cancers, like those of the head and neck or the pancreas, are hard to spot in the early stages. This blood test could help – and avoid invasive procedures like biopsies.

早期發現并治療癌癥是成功康復的關鍵。但有些癌癥，比如頭頸癌或胰腺癌，在早期很難被發現。這種血液測試可能有助改善這一情況，同時避免活組織檢查這樣的侵入性醫療程序。

Dominic Hughes, BBC correspondent
For years, scientists have been trying to develop a simple blood test that could detect cancers before any symptoms became obvious, but they really struggled because the tests just weren’t accurate enough -– there were either too many false positives or false negatives. Now, though, they think they have made a real breakthrough.

多米尼克·休斯       BBC通訊員
“多年來，科學家們一直在嘗試研究出一種簡單的血液檢測方法，可以在任何癥狀變得明顯之前檢測出癌癥，但他們著實遇到了難題，因為之前的檢測結果不夠準確，要么假陽性率過高，要么假陰性率過高。但現在，他們認為終于取得了突破性進展。”

Sir Harpal Kumar, President, GRAIL Europe
So, technology is really what’s made the difference here. First of all, we need to be able to detect really minute quantities of DNA in our blood, and our ability to do that has improved markedly over the last several years.

哈帕爾·庫馬爾爵士       GRAIL（生物醫藥科技公司）歐洲主管
“技術是助我們取得突破的真正推動力。首先，我們需要能夠檢測出血液中極微量的 DNA（脫氧核糖核酸），而我們的檢測能力在過去幾年間有了顯著的提升。

The second thing is the power of modern computing really – so we’ve looked at data from tens of thousands of people, and we’ve used that data to really optimise the test.

其次，還要歸功于現代計算機技術的強大，我們研究了數萬人的數據，并利用這些數據對測試進行了優化。”

This is just the start of a clinical trial, but if the promise of this simple test is fulfilled, it could mark the beginning of a revolution in cancer treatment.

這僅僅是一次臨床試驗的開始，但如果這項簡單的檢查能達成預期標準，就可能標志著一場癌癥治療革命的開始。

詞匯

blood samples 血液樣本

tumours 腫瘤

early detection （疾病的）早期發現

invasive procedures 侵入性醫療程序

symptoms 癥狀

問題答案

They were not accurate enough.