A blood test able to detect early signs of lung cancer has been dubbed a “game-changer” after a successful trial in Scotland.
The test finds antibodies generated from the body’s immune system when cancer cells are present at an early stage.
This would allow doctors to identify lung cancer patients before they are showing any sign of the disease.
The trial – believed to be the largest of its kind – could now lead to lung cancer being detected up to four years earlier than at present.
Some 12,210 patients from Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Tayside at high risk of developing lung cancer were recruited for the trial.
They were split into two groups, with the first group given X-rays and CT scans only if symptoms emerged.
The second group were given a blood test at the outset, and those with a positive result were offered immediate X-ray and CT scans, with follow-up scans every six months.
Over the two-year period of the study, 71 people in the control group were diagnosed with lung cancer, and 56 in the blood test group. However, late-stage diagnoses were “significantly lower” in the test group – 41 per cent were diagnosed at stages one or two, compared with only 27 per cent in the control group.
Professor Frank Sullivan, an expert in primary care medicine at St Andrews University, led the study.
He said: “These landmark findings are likely to have globally significant implications for the early detection of lung cancer by showing how a simple blood test, followed by CT scans, is able to increase the number of patients diagnosed at an earlier stage of the disease, when surgery is still possible and prospects for survival much higher.”
Joseph Carter, head of the British Lung Foundation Scotland, said: “An accurate blood test would be a game-changing moment for lung cancer diagnosis.”
