Non-Invasive Biomarkers For Early Detection Of Lung Cancers

Recent studies have shown that low-dose chest CT scans can detect lung cancers in high-risk populations (age >50yo, >30 pack-years of tobacco use), and can lower cancer mortality. Unfortunately, the vast majority of "positive" findings on these CT scans are benign (>95%). Currently, an inordinate amount of expensive follow-up testing is required for these patients to try to prove who among them truly has a cancer.

Several new emerging non-invasive and potentially cheaper tests are now being investigated to help differentiate patients with cancers versus just benign lung nodules. These new tests include a new type of sputum analysis, a breath analysis, a blood test measuring certain tumor markers, a blood test looking for auto-antibodies, and a standard PET/CT scan. Each of these tests have different sensitivity and specificity rates when looking for lung cancer, and it is unclear which test is best.

This study will employ a panel of all 5 of these non-invasive tests on an initial cohort of 50 patients with recently diagnosed lung cancer to try to measure the sensitivity of the tests. A follow-on study will then perform the same panel of tests on 300 lung nodule patients to see which test, or combination of tests, gives the best overall accuracy in terms of predicting who really has lung cancer. It is hoped that the use of such a panel could lead to dramatically decreased need for expensive and morbid invasive testing for this population.