Serum biomarkers for early detection of lung cancer.

Abstract

e21057 Background: Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death in the developed world with 5-year survival rates that have remained dismal over the past decade despite significant advancements in screening and treatment methodologies. This lack of improvement can be largely attributed to an inability to detect early-stage disease leading to a preponderance of advanced disease at diagnosis, for which treatment is less successful. The measurement of serum biomarkers offers a promising means of early detection. The current lack of a serum biomarker for the detection of lung cancer mandates the development of improved methods of biomarker identification. Methods: We performed an analysis of 70 cancer-related biomarkers, utilizing Luminex xMap technology, in the sera of patients diagnosed with lung cancer, benign lung conditions, and healthy controls. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cases consisted of 33 patients diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and 29 patients diagnosed with squamous carcinoma of the lung. Benign controls were 43 patients diagnosed with a spectrum of non-malignant lung conditions. The study population also included 142 healthy controls matched to the cancer patients on the basis of age, gender, and smoking history who had undergone lung CT and were known to be cancer free for at least 3 years. Results: Our biomarker analysis identified 20 biomarkers, representing diverse biochemical functions, whose levels differed significantly between the cases and controls. A multivariate analysis of our biomarker results yielded several multimarker panels that could differentiate cases from controls with high sensitivity (SN) and specificity (SP). A four-biomarker panel could discriminate lung cancers from the healthy control set with 85% SN at 90% SP. This panel performed similarly in distinct training and validation sets within the combined set. Another four- biomarker panel was able to discriminate the combined NSCLCs from the benign controls with 90% SN at 75% SP. Conclusions: Our serum biomarker findings support the notion that this type of screening may lead to significant improvements in our ability to detect lung cancer at a treatable stage while also offering insight into the underlying molecular processes involved. No significant financial relationships to disclose.