Universal Diagnostics touts blood-based lung cancer test

2019 09 09 20 46 2283 Lung Cancer 400

Universal Diagnostics announced results of its investigational blood-based lung cancer test, which showed that it can detect different lung cancer subtypes early with high sensitivity and specificity. The results indicate the test could be used to screen a wider population regardless of the smoking status of the patient.

Presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2020 World Conference, the test uses methylation status measurement of the tumor-derived portion from cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in plasma for patient classification. Researchers examined plasma samples of 37 lung cancer patients and 71 asymptomatic age, gender, and smoking-history matching controls.

The panel demonstrated 73% sensitivity and 90% specificity. A total of 82% of adenocarcinoma, 80% of squamous cell carcinoma, 73% of small cell lung cancer, and 40% of other rare lung cancer subtypes were correctly identified, the firm said. More specifically, the sensitivity for stage I cancers was 73%, Universal Diagnostics said.

The firm plans to build on the preliminary results and move forward with test development, including starting clinical sample collection studies and further improving the panel and its performance.

Page 1 of 7
Next Page