Potential Early Warning System for Lung Cancer ...( Researchers at The University of ...),Health

Researchers at The University of Nottingham in the British Midlands

Identify Possible Early Detection for Lung Cancer Patients

CHICAGO, Oct. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the British Midlands Development Corporation announced that new research from The University of Nottingham has pinpointed a potential early warning system for lung cancer.

The study, published in the journal Thorax, found that changes in the blood can be detected which signal the presence of lung cancer, and that these changes can be present years before outward symptoms become apparent. Early diagnosis means earlier treatment -- which is much more likely to be effective.

Worldwide, lung cancer kills around 900,000 people every year, and can take 20 years or more to develop fully. But it is usually only picked up at an advanced stage, when the chances of successful treatment are minimal.

As yet, there is no effective early warning system to detect the disease in its early treatable stages, and the dismal long-term prospects of patients with lung cancer have changed little in the past 30 years.

The research team at Nottingham, in collaboration with a team at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, analyzed blood (plasma) samples from 50 healthy volunteers and 104 people with different types of lung cancer.

They tested for autoantibodies -- immune system proteins directed at the body's own tissues, in response to specific chemical signals in the body. They looked in particular for a panel of seven autoantibodies, which are associated with 'solid tumors,' such a lung, breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers, and triggered when cancerous changes are taking place.

They found the presence of all seven autoantibodies, and very high levels of at least one of the seven autoantibodies in almost eight out of 10 samples taken from patients with confirmed lung cancer.

And they were found in eight out of the nine patients whose cancer had not infiltra
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