Diagnostic tools and innovative therapies improve patient...(oduced near perfect discrimination betwe...),Health

"Based on abnormal cell prevalence counts in sputum from patients with cancer, we estimate that the LuCED test demonstrates near-perfect specificity (no false positives) while maintaining sensitivity that exceeds 90 percent for patients with lung cancer cells in their sputum," says Michael Meyer, M.S, lead author and vice president for image engineering at VisionGate. "This type of 3D analysis provides an unobstructed and unambiguous representation of normal and abnormal cell morphology, making the LuCED test an effective means to guide the physicians' further diagnostic workup, including diagnostic CT or bronchoscopy."

Mr. Meyer will present this study on Tuesday, August, 4, 2009 at 12:50 pm PT in Moscone West, Room 2020-2022, Level 2.

Lung cancer's status as the most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide is due in part to its difficulty to diagnose at an early stage. Symptoms often don't appear in patients until the cancer has spread beyond the lungs, thus making a novel test for early-stage lung cancer critical. Previous studies have examined the sputum, or respiratory fluid, of lung cancer patients to determine the differences when compared to the sputum of healthy individuals.

In this study, Erik Thunnissen, M.D., of Pathologisch Anatomisch Laboratorium in the Netherlands, and his team expand on previous research to evaluate the presence of chemical compounds called methyl groups in sputum, and their relationship to the presence of lung cancer. After selecting three genes for their methyl groups, the team examined a total of 570 sputum samples of both lung cancer and healthy patients.

Researchers found that when evaluating the samples with cytological examination at the microscope, a classification of "suspicious fo
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