A British daily says that a revolutionary blood test, which acts like a smoke detector to spot cancer up to ten years before symptoms appear, could be available within five years.

According to the Telegraph on Tuesday, scientists at Swansea University in Britain discovered that mutations occur in red blood cells way before any signs of cancer are evident.

The scientists then devised a simple test which hunts for the mutations and can indicate if cancer is present in just a couple of hours.

The report said that the scientists look for mutated blood cells that have lost sticky Velcro-like proteins, which help other proteins attach to the cell.

It said that in healthy people, only a few mutated cells are found per million, but in people with cancer the figure jumps by more than tenfold.