[Advances in early diagnosis of lung cancer]

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death worldwide. Early diagnosis and early treatment are of great importance. Chest X-ray, spinal CT, bronchoscopy and sputum cytology have long been used as screening or diagnostic modalities for early detection of lung cancer. However, these methods have limitations in sensitivity, specificity or utility in some degree. In recent years, researchers all over the world have done lots of work on finding and identifying biomarkers for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. In this paper, recent developments in this field are reviewed.