Trial to assess lung cancer screening with combined CT, blood test
National Jewish Health in Denver is launching a lung cancer screening trial that will combine a CT chest scan and the EarlyCDT-Lung blood test, and will seek to build on recent research demonstrating that CT screening alone can reduce lung cancer mortality.
The trial will screen 1,600 participants over four years. They will receive both the EarlyCDT-Lung blood test and a low-dose CT scan at no charge. Particpants need to be 50-75 years of age, have a smoking history of at least 20 pack-years (equivalent to a pack a day for 20 years) and be a current or former smoker who quit fewer than 10 years ago. Those who have a history of cancer other than skin cancer, serious illness that limits their life expectancy to less than five years or currently use oxygen to breathe are not eligible for the study.
"We have learned from the [National Lung Cancer Screening Trial] that CT screening of high-risk patients can reduce lung-cancer deaths. But we need to enhance screening to detect a greater number of early-stage lung cancers," said the trial's principal investigator James R. Jett, MD, of the department of oncology at National Jewish Health. "Combining CT screening with biomarker tests, such as the EarlyCDT-Lung, may help us detect more lung cancers at earlier stage while reducing the number of biopsies or operations performed for non-canceorus abnormalities."
EarlyCDT-Lung, developed by the De Soto, Kansas-based Oncimmune, seeks to detect antibodies that a person's immune system produces in its attempt to fight cancer.
The trial will screen 1,600 participants over four years. They will receive both the EarlyCDT-Lung blood test and a low-dose CT scan at no charge. Particpants need to be 50-75 years of age, have a smoking history of at least 20 pack-years (equivalent to a pack a day for 20 years) and be a current or former smoker who quit fewer than 10 years ago. Those who have a history of cancer other than skin cancer, serious illness that limits their life expectancy to less than five years or currently use oxygen to breathe are not eligible for the study.
"We have learned from the [National Lung Cancer Screening Trial] that CT screening of high-risk patients can reduce lung-cancer deaths. But we need to enhance screening to detect a greater number of early-stage lung cancers," said the trial's principal investigator James R. Jett, MD, of the department of oncology at National Jewish Health. "Combining CT screening with biomarker tests, such as the EarlyCDT-Lung, may help us detect more lung cancers at earlier stage while reducing the number of biopsies or operations performed for non-canceorus abnormalities."
EarlyCDT-Lung, developed by the De Soto, Kansas-based Oncimmune, seeks to detect antibodies that a person's immune system produces in its attempt to fight cancer.