Screening for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

This page explains why there is no screening programme for ALL. Screening means testing people for early stages of cancer before they have any symptoms.

A quick guide to what's on this page
What screening is
Screening for ALL

Screening for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Screening means testing people for early stages of a disease before they have any symptoms.

Before doctors can screen for any type of cancer, there must be an accurate test to use. The test must be reliable in picking up cancers that are there. And it must not give a positive result in people who do not have cancer. It must also be simple, safe and not too expensive.

At the moment, we don’t have a screening test that is reliable enough to use for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). So there is no UK screening programme.

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Before doctors can screen for any type of cancer, there must be an accurate test to use. The test must be reliable. It should not give a negative result if people do have the disease you are testing for. And it must not give a positive result in people who do not have the disease. It must also be simple, safe, and not too expensive.

There is no screening test reliable enough to use for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). So there is no UK screening programme.

Leukaemia is not a common condition. It would probably be most cost effective to screen people who may be at higher risk. But first, we must be sure we know who has a higher risk.