Medicare must fund blood-based cancer screenings. NY's delegatin must act

Finding out you or a loved one has cancer can be one of the more jarring experiences in our lives. As a cancer patient and doctor, I have seen how different the cancer journey after diagnosis is depending on when the cancer is caught. Until we take the steps to strengthen our cancer screening capabilities, these disparities are going to continue.

If you have breast, cervical, colorectal, lung or prostate cancer, there are diagnostic exams that can enable the cancer to be detected early when it is still highly treatable. That leaves many other cancer types, though, for which there are no approved screenings. People with those variations of the disease may remain asymptomatic while the cancer spreads inside them. 

In New York, for example, of the five types of cancer that cause the greatest number of deaths for both men and women, two for women (pancreatic and ovarian) and two for men (pancreatic and liver) do not have approved screenings. In fact, roughly 70% of cancer-related deaths nationwide are from types of this disease for which there weren’t early detection tools.

With a boost from science and the right decisionmaking, that could soon be changing.

Large-scale clinical trials have shown the efficacy of a new diagnostic blood test, one that can detect dozens of types of cancer — thanks to advances in genomics and machine learning — with a single blood draw. This can be a game changer for people with cancer. Not only does a blood test like this make it easier to identify a cancerous tumor that may not yet be causing symptoms, but it can also be easily administered to people who may not have ready access to health centers with cancer detecting technologies like mammograms and colonoscopies. 

As this new innovation is awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, it is important that policymakers take steps to ensure that the multi-cancer early detection blood test is accessible to those with the greatest need for it. That begins with the older men and women among us who have the greatest propensity for cancer affliction. 

Right now, Medicare does not provide immediate coverage for new preventive care tools and services. Even if a multi-cancer early detection blood test would save thousands of lives, it could still languish in the federal bureaucracy for months or years before being made available to people who could benefit from it. This would be tragic, particularly for those who have a type of cancer that cannot be screened. 

There is legislation that has been introduced in both the U.S. Senate and House, the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act, that would cut through this red tape and create a pathway to Medicare coverage for this breakthrough blood test. This will enable more people to get treatment for their cancers at an early stage when they can beat the disease and enjoy more healthy years. As we celebrate National Cancer Survivors Month this June, we should be giving more people access to this life-changing technology so they too can join cancer survivors marking this month.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with New York’s Congressional delegation, should work together to pass this bill as soon as possible so that Medicare access is ensured when the FDA gives this new cancer detection tool the green light.

Jerry Balentine is executive vice president and provost at New York Tech.