Blood Test Detects Lung Cancer Earlier

A multi-biomarker blood test for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may be able to detect the disease earlier and with better accuracy than computed tomography (CT) scans.

The use of age and smoking history as selection criteria in population-based CT screening trials offers a low yield of cancer detection at significant cost. Moreover, the routine identification of indeterminate pulmonary nodules during CT screening often requires additional workup, magnifying the cost and adding potential morbidity from related interventional diagnostic procedures.

The new blood test, an antibody panel developed by 20/20GeneSystems Inc. (Rockville, MD, USA), was evaluated by Li Zhong, Ph.D., and colleagues from the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY, USA). They analyzed blood samples taken from patients several years before their tumors were detected by CT scans, to determine whether an antibody panel could detect the disease before it reached the conventional size limit of 0.5 mm needed for diagnosis by radiographic screening methods. The test results, generated as an immune response to NSCLC, were able to predict NSCLC with approximately 85% accuracy. The results were reported in the July 2006 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

"Clearly, the specificity is far superior to CT scanning and chest x-rays, as our test correctly ruled out cancer in more than 87% of the noncancer controls,” said Li Zhong, the lead author of the study, "whereas CT screening has a false-positive rate of more than 50%.”

"Our goal is to successfully create the first accurate blood test for lung cancer that can detect the disease years earlier than the current gold standard,” said Jonathan Cohen, 20/20 GeneSystems' chief executive officer. "Currently, only 25% of NSCLC is diagnosed at an early, curable stage. There is a compelling need for tools that lead to the detection of lung cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages.”





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20/20GeneSystems
University of Kentucky