A test for four blood proteins may provide a less-invasive follow-up for patients who may have lung cancer.
“CT scans have a very high false positive rate when trying to discover lung cancer,” said Edward Patz, Jr., M.D., a radiologist at Duke and lead investigator on the study.
This leads to several follow-up imaging studies or invasive procedures like biopsy, which have risks of their own.
“This study is the first step in developing a test that would allow us to sample a patient’s blood and determine whether more invasive testing and treatment are necessary.”