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Cancer Resources > Cancer News > 2008 > March
Autoantibody assay may lead to earlier detection of lung cancer
Last Updated: 2008-03-19 13:52:21 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Screening for lung cancer with a panel of tumor-associated antigens may someday permit earlier detection of tumors, researchers report in the March issue of Thorax.
Dr. Caroline J. Chapman of The University of Nottingham, UK, and colleagues there and in Germany assessed plasma from 50 healthy controls, 82 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 22 patients with small cell lung cancer for levels of autoantibodies to a panel of seven cancer-associated antigens: p53, c-myc, HER2, NY-ESO-1, CAGE, MUC1 and GBU4-5.
High levels of autoantibodies were found to at least one of the seven antigens in 76% of the lung cancer patients, Dr. Chapman's team reports. Autoantibodies were found in 89% of node-negative patients, with a specificity of 92%.
There was no significant difference in autoantibody detection rates between the lung cancer subgroups, although the investigators found that "more patients with squamous cell carcinomas (92%) could be identified" on autoantibody profiling.
"Although almost all the autoantibody assays measured significant responses in the plasma of patients with cancer, the individual sensitivity of each assay within the panel varied," Dr. Chapman and associates write.
"Measurement of p53, c-myc and HER2 did not add significantly to the panel assay," according to the authors. Substitution of other lung-cancer specific antigens for these general cancer antigens may improve the potential of the panel, they add.
"A diagnostic test for lung cancer is of particular importance owing to the late stage at which patients currently present with this disease and the fact that this disease will cause significant social burden for at least 20 years, even if all smoking were discontinued today," the researchers write.
Thorax 2008;63:228-233.
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