Development of Molecular Approaches to Early Lung Cancer Detection

Lung cancer has been particularly recalcitrant to standard therapeutic interventions. Improvement in the outcome for this disease requires the ability to identify the disease while it is still localized in the airways. Usually, radiation therapy to eliminate this disease fails because of progression of the cancer outside the radiation treatment ports. This is a failure of the diagnostic modalities to detect the extent of the cancer, not a failure of the radiation. With new epithelial-directed diagnostics, the ability to detect the premetastatic phase of lung cancer is emerging. Evolution of the screening infrastructure will be required to allow percolation of this technology out to the medical community, so that a benefit in cancer mortality reduction can be achieved. Some development issues will have to be resolved. Considering our fragmentary understanding of pulmonary carcinogenesis, the heterogeneity of lung cancer suggests that a panel of biomarkers instead of a single marker will be required to clarify the status of an individual's epithelium. However, the data output from multiplexed bioassays performed on large clinical populations will require better integration of information technology to optimize analysis and reporting of test results. An important new area for outcomes research is the systematic analysis of population screening approaches. With population sampling algorithms, selective screening. This type of research requires careful clinical validation. Finally, the general acceptance of population-based screening will be determined by the availability of effective interventions to complement the new diagnostic tools. New measures to prevent the progression of early cancer will be discussed.