Northwestern Study: New Blood Test Using as Little as 1 Milliliter Can Track Small Cell Lung Cancer Burden and Molecular Subtypes
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, reported on October 29 that a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrates a novel liquid biopsy technique that can measure cancer burden and reveal the molecular characteristics of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) using as little as 1 milliliter of blood.
Small cell lung cancer accounts for roughly 15 percent of lung cancer cases, according to CDC estimates, and is marked by rapid growth, early spread and poor survival. Tumors differ in important biological ways, but obtaining enough tumor tissue for molecular testing has been a persistent challenge.
The technique, called cfChIP-seq, was pioneered by Nir Friedman's research group at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Unlike most liquid biopsies, which focus on tumor DNA mutations, cfChIP-seq analyzes DNA fragments and associated proteins shed into the bloodstream by dying cells and reads active chromatin marks to determine which genes are turned on in tumor cells; in SCLC, much of the important biology is driven by gene expression rather than mutations.
Investigators analyzed 441 plasma samples from patients with SCLC and other cancers and from healthy controls, and compared the blood-based findings with matched tumor samples. The study's blood-based SCLC score correlated strongly with cancer burden shown on tumor imaging, and the method tracked progression and identified molecular subtypes without repeated tissue biopsies.
Senior author Anish Thomas, MD, the Roswell Park Professor of Hematology and Oncology and a member of Northwestern's Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, said a blood test capturing both tumor burden and molecular identity could eventually help clinicians monitor treatment response and detect changes in tumor biology as resistance develops, but that larger prospective studies are needed before routine clinical use. The study was supported in part by the NIH Intramural Research Program (NCI ZIA BC 011793).
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 研究资深作者阿尼什·托马斯医学博士（Anish Thomas, MD）。西北大学范伯格医学院官方照片。 / Senior author Anish Thomas, MD. Official photo, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
