Early detection of lung cancer through blood test

The World Health Organization and the International Union for Cancer Control have designated February 4 as World Cancer Day. This is a disease that haunts the world, with over 14.1 million new cases and over 8.2 million deaths each year.

In Vietnam, each year there are 135,000 - 180,000 new cases and 95,000 - 135,000 deaths. Vietnam is ranked 78/172 countries and territories surveyed with a death rate of 110/100,000 people.

In our country, lung cancer accounts for the highest incidence and mortality in men and the third highest in women and is constantly increasing. The number of new cases of lung cancer in men in 2000 was only 6,905 cases with a rate of 29.3 people/100,000 people. By 2010, the number of cases was 14,652 cases and the rate increased to 35.1 cases/100,000 people.

It is predicted that by 2020, the number of new cases could reach 23,000 in men and more than 34,000 in both sexes.

This is one of the types of cancer that is difficult to screen and detect early. The clinical manifestations of the disease are diverse. Symptoms such as cough, chest tightness, shortness of breath, coughing up blood... are not typical signs of the disease. In the early stages, the disease develops silently, with poor symptoms or no symptoms.

Professor Mai Trong Khoa, former Deputy Director of Bach Mai Hospital, said that up to 70% of lung cancer patients in Vietnam are diagnosed with the disease at a late stage, making treatment very difficult and the survival time not much longer.

Specifically, the 5-year survival rate for small cell lung cancer is only about 6%, and for large cell lung cancer it is about 18%.

For diagnosis, doctors often apply the popular method of CT scan, but still 20-40% of patients are misdiagnosed due to false positives. This method must be repeated periodically every 1.5 years at an expensive cost.

New direction for early detection of lung cancer

Currently, Vietnam, along with many other countries, is applying a new approach, testing for biomarkers (using markers) to detect cancer early.

For lung cancer, people in many European countries do biomarker testing once a year.

Professor Mai Trong Khoa said that the five common markers currently used are CEA, ProGRP, NSE, Cyfra 21-1 and SCC, which are tested based on the patient's blood sample.

High-risk subjects such as smokers, including passive smokers, families with relatives (father, mother, brother, sister) with lung cancer, working in environments with the risk of exposure to carcinogens... need more frequent testing, depending on age. The older the age, the more frequent the testing.

If the body is normal, the concentration is low, but when there is a malignant tumor, it will increase abnormally. If it is up to thousands of times, it is definitely cancer.

This method is 80% accurate. The 20% who are suspicious will be tested again after 1 month to be sure. This is a cheap lung cancer screening method, with accurate results, along with clinical examination and imaging diagnosis to help detect lung cancer early.

Currently, all central hospitals, most provincial hospitals and many large laboratories can perform this test, but few people in the community know about it.

In addition to helping detect many types of cancer early, the use of markers also helps doctors monitor recurrence after treatment and effectively evaluate treatment effectiveness.