Johns Hopkins Has Developed A Lung Cancer Blood Test - AI Summary

The lung cancer blood test, published in Nature Communications, searches for tiny fragments of DNA released by the tumor cells. "We believe that a blood test, or'liquid biopsy,' for lung cancer could be a good way to enhance screening efforts, because it would be easy to do, broadly accessible, and cost-effective," study first author Dimitrios Mathios said. DELFI uses machine learning to spot the patterns of DNA pieces that are associated with tumors, including their size and how many of them are present, and score them based on how likely they are to indicate cancer. Searching for lung cancer's signature: The researchers put DELFI to the test using blood samples from 796 patients in the U.S., Denmark, and the Netherlands. When combined with a clinical evaluation of risk markers, the use of a protein biomarker, and CT scans, the model correctly flagged 94% of lung cancers.