In most cases, non small cell lung carcinoma becomes incurable as it is not diagnosed until reached an advanced level. At the later stages of lung cancer, it gets difficult to cure the disease. To help improve the survival rates, researchers are working towards developing blood test to detect lung cancer at an early stage. The study has been published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. It has described a new technology called electric field-induced release and measurement (EFIRM). It is capable of detecting two epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations associated with lung cancer in the blood of non-small cell lung carcinoma patients in the early stage. This platform is relatively inexpensive and capable of high-throughput testing.
The five-year survival for patients diagnosed with NSCLC is less than 10%. The ability to diagnose NSCLC in stages 1 and 2 could significantly reduce the mortality from NSCLC. “The revolutionary EFIRM technology is the most exciting development in noninvasive liquid biopsy in recent years. The potential to detect early-stage lung cancer patients with an affordable blood or saliva test could save thousands to tens of thousands of lives annually worldwide,” stated Dr Charles M. Strom, co-director of the Centre for Oral/Head and Neck Oncology Research at the UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, CA, USA, and Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of EZLife Bio, USA, Woodland Hills, CA, USA.
This EFIRM technology is used to monitor the treatment and detect recurrence in patients that are already diagnosed with NSCLC. This new technology identifies two cancer-linked mutations in early stage lung cancer patients.
The study does not offer direct evidence that detection of EGFR mutations in the plasma is predictive that patient suffers from cancer. Future work is required to find out whether EGFR mutation has any predictive value or not.
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