Spotlight on the News

AI Based Blood Tests Could Possibly Identify Lung Cancers Earlier

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer not only in the U.S., but also worldwide, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and by the World Health Organization. Today, by doing yearly screening with CT scans, high risk patients may detect lung cancers earlier when they are most treatable.

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center's https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org researchers and researchers at other institutions, have now developed and validated a liquid biopsy that may help identify lung cancers earlier.

Victor E. Velculescu, MD, Ph.D. Professor, Oncology, and Co-Director of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program at Johns Hopkins, along with his colleagues, have developed a test over the past five years that uses AI to detect patterns of DNA fragments found in patients with lung cancer.

The researchers' computer simulations showed that if the test boosted the rate of lung cancer screening to 50% within five years, then the number of lung cancers detected could quadruple. This would increase the proportion of cancers detected early when they are most treatable, which is about 10% of the time. Overall, this could prevent about 14,000 cancer deaths over 5 years.

Information on the study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, was published June 3, 2024 in "Cancer discovery". The information discusses how the researchers were able to demonstrate that AI technology could identify people more likely to have lung cancer based on DNA fragment patterns in the blood.

The published information shows that the research team used AI software to identify the specific patterns of DNA fragments seen in the blood of 576 people with or without lung cancer.

The researchers then verified that the method worked in a second group of 382 people with and without cancer. Based on the researchers' analyses, the test had a negative predictive value of 99.8% which means that only 2 in 1,000 individuals tested may have lung cancer.

This specific test for cancer is currently available through DELFI Diagnostics, however, the research team is going to seek approval from FDA for lung cancer screening. Dr. Velculescu and his colleagues are planning to study whether a similar approach could be used to detect other types of cancer.