ATLANTA - Biopharmaceutical researchers have found a protein in blood they say is linked to all stages of lung cancer but which rarely shows up in the blood of people without the disease. Testing for this protein might help physicians decide whether smokers or others at high risk for lung cancer should be referred for lung imaging, say investigators, who presented their findings today in Atlanta, Georgia at the American Association for Cancer Research’s second International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development. A diagnostic blood test to screen high-risk individuals for lung cancer could be both practical to use and cost-effective, say investigators from Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md.
