Advance in lung cancer detection

Dec 21 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

SCIENTISTS at the University of Liverpool have developed a more sophisticated way of predicting the risk of developing lung cancer.

Two-thirds of lung cancer cases in the UK could be predicted by screening only 30% of the population using the Liverpool Lung Project (LLP) risk model – funded in collaboration with the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.

The model differs from previous ones, which only focused on age and smoking status and fail to account for other groups at risk.

Currently a 60-year-old-male with a long smoking history would be considered at high risk while a non-smoker of a similar age would not.

The LLP model shows the risk of a smoker developing lung cancer in a five-year-period can be similar to that of a non-smoker who has other aggravating lifestyle factors such as a prior diagnosis of pneumonia.

John Field, professor of cancer studies at the University of Liverpool and director of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer research programme, said: “The LLP Risk Model provides a more sophisticated way of identifying individuals within five years.

Professor Stephen Duffy, Cancer Research UK’s professor of cancer screening, said: “As methods for preventing lung cancer and screening for early signs of the disease are developed, being able to identify those at high risk will be crucial, so that people who are mostly likely to benefit from screening and other treatments receive them.”