Researchers at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine have unveiled a new blood test for lung cancer that may be able to reduce the number of unnecessary invasive procedures.

Steven Dubinette, M.D., a professor of medicine and pathology, and director of the University's Lung Cancer Research Program at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and his colleagues presented the study at the American Association for Cancer Research/International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer in San Diego, in early January.

The researchers assembled a 40-marker panel of potential lung cancer biomarkers based on previous investigations from 90 patients with lung cancer as well as 56 control patients thought to be at high risk due to their smoking histories.
The biomarkers Dr. Dubinette and his colleagues identified have significantly different levels of protein in patients with lung cancer compared with those who were well, thus allowing them to correctly identify sick patients 88% of the time. The test also correctly identified patients who did not have lung cancer 79% of the time.

"Much more needs to be done to confirm these studies, but in the future we would envision a patient and their physician considering an abnormality on a chest X-ray or CT scan and using this blood test as an additional factor to determine the likelihood that they had lung cancer," said Dr. Dubinette.

The researchers are currently conducting a larger study with some 700 patients who have had their blood collected after imaging showed they had indeterminate pulmonary lesions. They all went on to have surgery.

"A large group of them had cancer but a significant portion did not have cancer. So we're actually in the process of testing those blood samples in a way that reflects a real life situation that happens to patients every day," said Dr. Dubinette.

About 20% of the patients in that study were found to have benign lesions that may not have warranted surgery. That's slightly lower than the national average. Of 150,000 abnormal chest X-rays performed each year in the United States, 25% of patients will display only benign lung pathologies on further surgical examination. Dr. Dubinette hopes that using blood testing as a diagnostic tool would help many of those patients to avoid such unnecessary invasive procedures.

"In an ideal world, that number would be zero. But a reasonable goal is to think we'd reduce the number of surgeries for benign disease by half," said Dr. Dubinette.

The researchers plan to continue developing the test and using it to evaluate larger groups of patients. Dr. Dubinette hopes that it will be ready for clinical use within two to three years.

According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 219,000 new cases of lung cancer were expected to be diagnosed last year, the most recent year for which statistics were estimated. About 159,000 people were expected to die from the disease.

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