Patients aged 45 and over who see a GP with abdominal symptoms will be offered a blood test in a trial of more than 20,000 NHS patients, the Department of Health and Social Care said on Wednesday.
The trial, called STRIDE-RCT, will run across at least 200 GP practices in England. Eligible patients are those with symptoms such as persistent bloating or discomfort.
Most participants will have one or two tubes of blood taken at their practice, alongside routine blood tests.
The tests look for signs of several cancers in a single sample and suggest where in the body they come from, using artificial intelligence and measurements of proteins in the blood.
A positive result is not a diagnosis. It will help the GP and patient decide whether an urgent referral is needed, and it is not by itself a confirmed cancer diagnosis.
The cancers covered are bowel, small bowel, stomach, oesophageal, pancreatic, liver, bile duct and gallbladder, ovarian, endometrial, kidney, bladder and prostate cancer, according to the University of Birmingham, which runs the platform trial and developed most of the tests.
The university’s project record gives a start date of 1 November 2026 and an end date of 31 October 2031. The trial will assess how well the tests work alongside GPs’ judgement before any decision is made on a national rollout.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research, funded through the Office for Life Sciences, will provide up to £8.49 million. The practices will include inner-city, rural, seaside and deprived communities.
Currently just 2 to 6 per cent of urgent cancer referrals result in a diagnosis, the government said.
Around 71,000 people in England are diagnosed each year with pancreatic, stomach, liver, ovarian or bowel cancer, and almost 35,000 die from them.
For bowel cancer, around nine in ten people diagnosed at stage 1 survive at least five years, compared with around one in ten at stage 4.
Professor Aneel Bhangu, a consultant colorectal surgeon and Co-Chief Investigator, said many patients reach him after months of vague symptoms, while “most people referred urgently do not have cancer”.
He said the tests might help GPs tell the two groups apart, but that this must be established for certain before any use across the NHS.
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS National Clinical Director for Cancer, said abdominal cancer is hard to detect early because symptoms can be mistaken for less serious conditions.
He said the trial would show whether blood tests can help GPs get the right patients to the right tests sooner.
Cancer Research UK’s chief executive welcomed the trial but was measured about its reach, saying: “The findings will be valuable in guiding further research, including whether these tests could be used in the NHS.”
The University of Birmingham said STRIDE-RCT is the first time a trial of this nature has been developed to assess a range of blood tests in primary care settings.
No results have yet been reported. Health and Social Care Secretary Yvette Cooper described it as a “world-first trial” that will establish whether simple blood tests can help GPs identify sooner the patients who need urgent support.
The government said the trial supports the National Cancer Plan and builds on 250,000 more people being diagnosed on time or having cancer ruled out last year than in the year before the 2024 election.