Lung
This gene expression signature found in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) can distinguish patients with early-stage NSCLC from appropriate at-risk controls with nonmalignant lung diseases common to both patient and control classes.
The case and control groups were similar in terms of age, race, gender, and smoking history. Fifty-five percent of the cancer patients were stage 1, 13% were stage 2, and 32% were stages 3 and 4. Eighty-four percent of the control group and 93% of the NSCLC group were current or previous smokers. The initial clinical use of our biomarkers is more likely to provide additional data to a clinician trying to evaluate a pulmonary nodule diagnosed by CT scan or chest X-ray. Based on prevalence data from a large CT screening study, the 29-gene NSCLC classifier has a positive predictive value of 0.06 and a negative predictive value of 1.00. This is comparable with the positive predictive and negative predictive values calculated using the same prevalence values for the 80-gene classifier derived from lung epithelial cells obtained from bronchial brushing recently described by Spira and colleagues (see Spira 80-marker panel for lung cancer and Spira 80-marker panel plus clinical factors in this database).
