AMAS or AMA (Anti-Malignan Antibody) blood test for cancer

This page has information on a type of blood test called AMAS. You can use these links to take you straight down the page to sections on

• What the AMAS blood test is
• Research into the AMAS blood test
• Is the AMAS blood test available in the UK?

This blood test measures an antibody in the blood called anti-malignin. Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system that help the body to fight disease.

Two American doctors discovered anti malignin in 1992. They found that anti-malignin antibody levels were higher in people with early stage cancer. They developed a blood test and named it the ‘AMAS test for Anti-Malignan Antibody in Serum’. They thought that the AMAS blood test would be an effective way to find cancer cells in the early stage of the disease.

Several companies, including Oncolab Inc now promote the AMAS test. Some companies say that the test may help doctors learn more about the stage of their patients cancer and their outcome (prognosis). But there is no research evidence to support this claim. It is not safe for doctors to use the AMAS test alone to diagnose cancer. And it hasn’t been tested as a screening tool for the population in general so it is not safe to use it to screen people with no symptoms for cancer.

There have been several studies looking at how useful the AMAS blood test is for people with cancer. One 1993 study involved 350 people - half had breast disease (some cancerous and some not) and half were healthy and had no breast disease. It was only people with breast cancer who had raised anti malignin antibodies. And the antibody level went back to normal once breast cancer treatment was over and there was no evidence of any remaining cancer.

More recently in 2000, an American study tested 154 healthy volunteers and 76 patients with the AMAS test. The researchers compared the reliability of the AMAS test to other blood tests for ‘tumour markers’. Tumour markers are chemicals made by some cancers and measurable in the blood, for example CA125 in ovarian cancer and PSA in prostate cancer. These 'markers' have also been investigated as possible tests for cancer. This study found that the AMAS test, although not completely reliable, was more sensitive than the tumour markers tested.

Another study in 2005 looked at the accuracy of this test in women having breast biopsies for suspected breast cancer. The researchers found the test was not accurate enough to be used instead of a biopsy. And the false positive rates were too high.

This is still very early research. We don’t know of any larger clinical trials using the AMAS test as a way of helping to diagnose cancer. We were also unable to find any evidence that the Food and Drug Administration of America (FDA) have approved the AMAS test. Yet, brochures and articles promoting the test often claim that it is ‘FDA approved’.

This is not a standard test to help diagnose people with cancer. We need a lot more research before we will know just how useful the AMAS test is for helping to diagnose cancer.

As far as we are aware the AMAS test is only available via commercial websites as it remains unproven.