GRAIL

For someone offered the test, these are the numbers that describe what a result means in an NHS population: about 1 in 100 tests came back positive each year, between 46 and 58 in 100 positives were cancer, and a negative result left about 1 in 100 with an undetected cancer within the year. The test found between a quarter and a third of all cancers diagnosed in a screening round, and about half to two thirds of the 12 cancer types it was designed to find. Whether finding them this way reduces late-stage diagnoses is the primary question, and this paper says only that the answer was no; the primary-endpoint paper had not appeared on Europe PMC by 23 September 2026.

Methylation-based screening is real but weakest exactly where pancreatic cancer needs it, at stage I, which is why high-risk surveillance rather than population screening carries the field here.