Genetic Test for Lung Cancer Uses Sputum

An inexpensive and non-invasive gene probe is being developed to help diagnose early stage lung cancer in current and former smokers.

In the January 15, 2007, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, scientists report that the test, designed to check whether two genes believed to be tumor suppressors are deleted in cells found in sputum, identified 76% of stage I lung cancer patients whose tumors also showed the same genetic loss. According to the report existing sputum cytology tests, which look for changes in cell structure, identified only 47% of the patients.

The gene probe is being developed by scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD, USA). They said that although their sputum analysis has a high correlation with lung cancer it is not yet sensitive enough for the clinic and they are expanding their test to screen for up to eight genes.

"There is an urgent need to develop reliable early diagnostic biomarkers for lung cancer that can be detected non-invasively, and these two genes look to be great candidate markers for such a test,” said Feng Jiang, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We need to validate our findings, of course, but we have shown that the genetic aberrations seen in sputum reflect the same genetic aberrations found in lung tumors, and that these molecular changes occur before any morphological changes can be seen in a cytology test.”



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