Proteomics Technique for Lung Cancer Prognosis

Cancer researchers have used a proteomics-based approach to develop a method for predicting the likely clinical outcome of lung cancer by using a minute sample of lung cancer tissue.

Investigators at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA) used mass spectrometry and customized software to analyze samples from 79 lung tumors and tissue from 14 normal lungs. The samples were only one millimeter in diameter and one nanometer in thickness.

Applying a customized computer program, they were able to distinguish lung tumor from normal lung; primary nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) from normal lung; primary NSCLC from cancer that had spread to the lungs from other organs; and adenocarcinomas from squamous cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas from large cell carcinomas. Most importantly, they were able to predict the risk that the cancer would spread to nearby lymph nodes.

"Involvement of lymph nodes is one of the most important factors in determining treatment strategies, so the clinical implications of these data could be significant,” explained senior author Dr. David P. Carbone, professor of medicine and cancer biology at Vanderbilt University. "Being able to use molecular markers to divide patients into high- or low-risk groups would also be very useful in determining treatment strategy.”




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