New Blood Test Could Detect Lung Cancer In Its Earliest Stages

Main Category: Lung Cancer
Article Date: 18 Sep 2003 - 0:00 PDT


Lung cancer is often diagnosed when it is too late.

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center (USA) are developing a blood test that may detect lung cancer at its early stages.

With an instrument called MALDI-TOF MS which identifies proteins in the blood that signal inflammatory diseases and cancers. Identifying a protein which causes diseases allows doctors to diagnose the disease and do something about it early.

Lung cancer patients have elevated levels of Serum Amyloid A (a protein). Radiologists are now able to identify this protein with the use of MALDI-TOF MS.

As a result, they plan to develop a blood test that will measure levels of Serum Amyloid A (and other proteins related to lung cancer ) before the tumor (UK=Tumour) is clinically apparent.

A scientist at Duke (Dr. Patz) say their technique is in reverse order. Rather than searching for a defective gene and then hunting down its relevant proteins, they are zeroing in on the disease causing protein itself.

He described how used MALDI-TOF MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry) in two studies which were published in the journal Proteomics (September 2003 issue).

Dr. Patz also said that MALDI-TOF MS is better and more sensitive than other techniques. MALDI-TOF MS can detect proteins of low molecular mass, acidic or basic, and at much lower concentrations than other methods.

PET and CT scans have had no significant impact on the mortality rate of lung cancer. Survival rates have remained stubbornly at around 14% for the last five years.

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