Researchers Detect Early Warning Sign for Lung Cancer

Researchers at the University of Nottingham announced October 11^th the discovery of potential early warning signs for lung cancer. The study was done in collaboration with researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany and published in the journal Thorax. According to the study, certain changes in the blood can warn of the presence of lung cancer up to five years before actually symptoms present themselves. This would allow for earlier treatment of the cancer and a higher success and survival rate.

According to the researchers at the University of Nottingham, lung cancer takes about twenty years to fully develop. Unfortunately, the disease is often first detected, when it is in advanced stages, which results in a low success rate for treatments. Worldwide, 900,000 people succumb to lung cancer each year. Thus far, over the last thirty years, there has been little progress made to improve the detection of this particular cancer at an earlier stage

The research teams from both universities took blood samples from 104 people with lung cancer and compared it to samples taken from 50 healthy volunteers. All samples were analyzed for autoantibodies, which are proteins of the immune system the body directs at its own tissues. The response of these autoantibodies to particular chemical body signals was tested with a focus specifically on certain seven autoantibodies the researchers knew are linked with so called 'solid tumors' like cancer of the lung, breast, ovaries, and prostate. They appear once the cancer starts to cause changes in the body.

Most of the lung cancer patients in the study had all of these seven autoantibodies in their system with high levels of at least one of the autoantibodies. They were also found in the majority of patients whose cancer had not yet spread to the lymph nodes and therefore elsewhere in the body, which is a stage where there is still and 80% chance of a successful treatment.