According to researchers, a new blood test can accurately detect early stage non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer, with 90 percent accuracy. This advancement in lung cancer diagnosis has the potential to eliminate the sometimes inaccurate test results reported with CT scans. After a CT scan, biopsies are often required to confirm the presence of lung cancer. The accuracy of the blood test reduces the number of biopsies done in the need to confirm detection of lung cancer. Another benefit of the blood test is that it can detect non-small-cell lung cancer years before traditional X-ray tests can.

The blood test to detect non-small-cell lung cancer is licensed to 20/20 GeneSystems. Additional clinical studies will be done to confirm the accuracy of the blood test, and if it proves to be as accurate as the initial studies have indicated, this blood test will become the first blood test to predict cancer since the introduction of a prostate specific antigen blood test, PSA, to detect prostate cancer.

This research is published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.