血清测试可在从未吸烟人群中就检出肺癌

Celera公司产品开发部的副主任Charlie Birse及其同事们正在研究利用其具自主专利的一组生物标志物行血清测试以检测肺癌的可靠性。其目的是在胸部CT扫描发现可疑结果的患者中运用该测试。一组生物标志物似可在从未吸烟人群的血液样本中查出肺癌。尽管吸烟和肺癌的联系早已得到确认，但约有1/4的肺癌人群仍为从未吸烟者。Birse称，“一些人行并非专为肺癌而行CT扫描。他们在做胸部CT扫描以预防心脏疾病或其他情况下偶然发现肺结节，而这些结节可能是良性也可能不是。这一组生物标志物则能进一步评估这些影像学检查，在一定程度上进行诊断。”

Birse和他的同事对600例样本进行检测。该样本随机分为训练集和测试集。前者包括吸烟的非小细胞肺癌（NSCLC）患者和配对的对照；后者包括其他的NSCLC病例和配对的对照。研究者成功构建出这些生物标志物后，在80例从未吸烟者中进行了研究。其中40例包含肺癌中各种分期和病理类型的患者，另外40例为经过年龄和性别配对后的对照。

研究者发现检测肺癌的敏感度和特异度均为83%，并检出了所有分期和病理类型的肺癌。Birse称，“尽管前景诱人，仍需要在更大样本的研究中以证实这些结果”。

原文

Serum Test Could Identify Lung Cancer in People Who Never Smoked

ORLANDO, Fla. — A panel of biomarkers appears to be able to identify the presence of lung cancer in the blood samples of people who have never smoked, according to data presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6.
While lung cancer has long been linked to smoking, approximately one-fourth of patients with lung cancer have never smoked. Researchers are working on ways to identify the presence of lung cancer in these patients.
Charlie Birse, Ph.D., associate director of product development at Celera Corporation, and colleagues are investigating the potential for a serum test that would examine the reliability of a proprietary panel of biomarkers for lung cancer. The goal is to administer this test in patients with suspect chest scans using computed axial tomography (CT) technology.
“In addition to intentional CT scans for lung cancer, many people undergo chest scans for heart disease prevention or other conditions and incidental nodules appear in the lungs that may or may not be benign,” said Birse. “This panel of biomarkers would allow these imaging tests to be further evaluated and provide a degree of certainty in diagnosis.”
Birse and colleagues examined more than 600 specimens. Samples were randomly divided into a training set comprised of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were smokers and matched controls followed by a testing set of additional NSCLC cases and matched controls. Once the researchers established the biomarkers, they conducted additional studies in 80 people who have never smoked, 40 of whom had varied stages of cancer and histological cell types and 40 control subjects matched by age and gender.
Researchers found strong performance with a sensitivity and a specificity of 83 percent in identifying lung cancer. All stages of lung cancer and histological cell types were distinguished.
“While promising, these findings still need to be confirmed in larger sets,” Birse said.