New research in early lung cancer detection

Researchers are now working to develop a new diagnostics platform with which lung cancer can be diagnosed in its early stages, even during a visit to the general practitioner.

In recent years, scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig have teamed up with colleagues at the University Clinic of Leipzig to develop a procedure that can detect special protein biomarkers in exhaled air. The presence of biomarkers suggests the presence of tumour cells in the lung.

In a project sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the specialists want to work with partners in industry to produce a first prototype that can then be further developed into a diagnostic tool that can be used in practice.

"Since 2006, working with the teams of Professor Hubert Wirtz and Professor Ulrich Sack of the University Clinic, we first identified various biomarkers that are particularly well suited for the identification of lung-cancer cells," notes Dr Jörg Lehmann, head of the Cell Engineering/GLP Unit at IZI. "The main difficulty lies in finding a reliable way to distinguish cancer from chronic inflammatory disease."

This laboratory method is still too "elaborate and expensive" for normal everyday use.

"Working in our joint project, the goal for the next two years is to produce a prototype that will then be validated in a clinical-diagnostic study and further developed to the production stage," Lehmann says.

In their new testing platform, the scientists have applied two new developments. In addition to the method enlisting protein biomarkers to identify cancer cells, they also make use of the antibody specially developed for this procedure. This way, within just a few years, every physician investigating a suspicion of lung cancer can use the diagnostic platform right in their own practice to test whether there in fact is a tumour, and quickly initiate treatment.