Veterans will soon have a chance to test a new cancer screening tool - all through a blood draw.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Veterans Health Foundation have partnered with GRAIL LLC, to provide veterans access to GRAIL’s groundbreaking multi-cancer early detection blood test. GRAIL will make its Galleri MCED test available to 10,000 veterans across approximately 10 sites over the next three years.

The Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center will be one of those sites.

The blood-screening tests will be offered as part of the Reflection clinical real-world evidence study. The study will review if Galleri, along with other standard cancer screenings, can find cancers at an early stage when treatment is most likely to be successful.

“Cancer is a leading cause of death with our Veterans having slightly higher rates (11.4%) of cancer diagnoses compared to non-Veterans (10%),” said Dr. Si-yuen Moy, staff hematologist-oncologist at the center, who is the principal investigator of the Reflection study. “The Galleri Test aims to complement standard cancer screening tests by extending cancer early detection to other cancers that do not currently have a standard screening test.”

Veterans can call 570-824-3521 to check eligibility or enrollment. Stay up to date at wilkes-barre.va.gov and Facebook.