As hundreds of thousands of NHS-Galleri trial blood test appointments across England come to a close, East of England Cancer Alliance is thanking the 14,000 participants in the East of England region, for supporting the NHS-Galleri trial – the world’s largest research trial of a multi-cancer early detection blood test.

Mobile clinics have visited locations across the region over the past three years including: Cambridge, Peterborough, Stowmarket, Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, King’s Lynn, and Great Yarmouth, to collect blood samples from volunteers taking part in the NHS-Galleri trial. This month (July) marks the last blood sample collection appointments for the trial, which concludes three rounds of blood sample appointments for participants.

The East of England Cancer Alliance was selected along with seven other regions to support the trial. Around 140,000 volunteers enrolled from many different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds across England.

Cancer Alliance spokesperson and GP Cancer Lead in the East of England, Dr Pete Holloway said: “Participating in clinical research has the potential to improve the way that cancer is detected, and we are hugely grateful to people in the region who volunteered for this research.

“The trial aims to see if a multi-cancer early detection (MCED) blood test (Galleri®) can help detect cancer early when used alongside population screening programmes. Finding cancer early often means it is easier to treat.

Volunteers were all aged 50 to 77 years old at the point of enrolling onto the trial and had not been diagnosed or treated for cancer in the last three years.”

Prof Richard Neal, Chief Investigator for the trial said: “Volunteers have played their part and we are grateful for their time and commitment. But the work of researchers continues with results due to be published in 2026. We’ll continue to collect information from the NHS so that researchers can assess whether there are significant differences between the group of participants whose blood was screened with the Galleri test and participants whose blood was not tested.”

Early research has shown that an MCED test could help to detect cancers that are typically difficult to identify including cancers for which there is no national screening programme.

The NHS-Galleri trial is being run by the Cancer Research UK Cancer Prevention Trials Unit at King’s College London in partnership with the NHS and healthcare company, GRAIL, which has developed the Galleri test.

The trial is operating with the support of eight NHS Cancer Alliances across England that span Cheshire and Merseyside, Greater Manchester, the North East and North Cumbria, West Midlands, East Midlands, East of England, Kent and Medway, and South East London.

Background to NHS-Galleri trial

The NHS-Galleri trial is a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) – meaning that half the participants have their blood sample screened with an MCED test right away (test group) and the other half have their sample stored (control group). These may be tested in the future. This is allowing scientists working on the trial to compare the stage at which cancer is detected between the two groups.

Those taking part in the trial are not informed if they are in the test or control group unless they were among the small minority whose test detected a potential signal of cancer in their blood. Anyone in this situation was contacted by a trial nurse by phone and referred to an NHS hospital for further tests.

All participants are advised to continue with their standard NHS screening appointments and to always contact their GP if they notice any new or unusual symptoms.