Pre-Treatment Blood Test Could Guide Lung Cancer Therapy, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Study Shows

A multi-center team, led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators, has discovered a “signature” of proteins in the blood that predicts which non-small-cell lung cancer patients will live longer when they are treated with certain targeted cancer therapies. The findings, published June 6 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, could one day help physicians decide which lung cancer patients to treat with drugs known collectively as EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, a step forward in the era of personalized medicine.