[Screening for asymptomatic cancers?].

A recent publication describes a sophisticated "liquid biopsy" procedure that analyses both tumoral DNA and proteins present in peripheral blood to provide sensitive detection of different types of cancer. These results represent a significant advance, but they still fall short of the sensitivity and specificity required, and it seems unlikely that they could progress to a level at which screening of the (asymptomatic) general population would have a really favourable benefit to risk ratio.