New Test Might be Able to Detect Lung Cancer at Early-stages

Lung Cancer 

Lung cancer continues to be the leading cause of cancer mortality, and like in many other cancers the early detection is key to improve survival. Unfortunately there are no reliable blood-based tests available for early-stage lung cancer diagnosis. 

One test commonly used for screening of lung cancer is low dose computed tomography, but it has a high false-positive rate. 

The 5 year survival rate after diagnosis is around 56% if the tumor is localized in the lung, but it decreases to 5% when it has spread to tissue beyond the lungs. That is why early detection is so important. 

New Test for Early-stage Detection

In a new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the Peking University People’s Hospital in China have developed a rapid and reliable blood test to detect early-stage lung cancer.

The test was named Lung Cancer Artificial Intelligence Detector (LCAID), and it assesses the levels of lipid biomarkers in plasma samples. The test can run 24 blood samples at the same time.

According to the American Cancer Society makes up to almost 25% of all cancer deaths, and each year more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancer combined. 

The researchers characterized changes in the gene expression profile of lung tumor cells to determine the metabolite biomarkers for early-stage lung cancer. After comparing the gene expression of lung cancer cells with healthy cells they found a difference in the expression levels of genes associated with lipid metabolism in people with lung cancer.

They then trained machine learning algorithms to identify early-stage lung cancer using these lipid metabolite profiles and found that the algorithm could predict the presence of lung cancer with high accuracy.

The performance of the LCAID test was assessed with cases in 109 people scheduled to undergo thoracic surgery and screened a further 1,036 asymptomatic individuals. The test detected early onset lung cancer with an accuracy of 91.74% and 96.53% in the thoracic surgery and screening groups, respectively.

Sources:

Deep Shukla. (2022, Feb 9). New test may quickly detect early stage lung cancer. Medical News Today. Retrieved from:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-test-may-quickly-detect-early-stage-lung-cancer 

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/lung-cancer/about/key-statistics.html

Image from:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/22021-calcium-blood-test