Developing a blood-based assay for early lung cancer detection
Description: Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. and the vast majority of lung cancers are linked to smoking. The reason lung cancer is so deadly is that in the majority of patients it is diagnosed after it has spread to distant organs such as the brain, liver, or bone. Unfortunately, once lung cancer has spread it is considered incurable. However, patients who are diagnosed with “early stage” lung cancer that is confined to a single area in the lung can often be cured by removal (surgery) or destruction (radiation) of the tumor. Recently, lung cancer screening in current or former smokers has been shown to save lives by increasing the number of patients diagnosed with early stage cancers. However, while it is covered by insurance in the U.S., less than 5% of eligible patients currently receive it. There are multiple reasons for this poor uptake but they include the concern that CT screening has a high risk of false positives and difficulty of accessing high quality radiology facilities. To address this unmet need we propose to develop a new approach for lung cancer screening that is minimally invasive, can discover very early lung cancers, and requires only a blood draw. Our approach detects tiny amounts of DNA that are released into the blood stream by lung cancers. Our method detects these DNA molecules by simultaneously searching for specific changes in their sequence (mutations) and chemical modifications (methylation marks) that are unique to DNA from lung cancer cells. We have performed preliminary experiments that suggest our approach is feasible and now plan to evaluate it more thoroughly in a pilot clinical study. If successful, our method could be used together with CT scanning in order to reduce the number of unnecessary follow-up tests or could eventually even replace CT scans as the primary lung cancer screening test. If so, it could contribute to saving lives of patients with lung cancer.
Amount: $630,800
Start date: 2020-07-01
Investigators: Maximilian Diehn, Maximilian Diehn
Institution: Stanford University
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: g9tp0j
OpenAlex ID: G559388808