May 9, 2018 (Medical News Today)
In its early stages, lung cancer is one of the deadliest cancers to find. It may take years for the lung cancer to grow with an absent presence of symptoms early on. By the time symptoms begin to appear, the cancer often has spread to other parts of the body. However, researchers may have located a biomarker, that could detect lung cancer at its earliest stage. According to the American Cancer Society, if lung cancer can be diagnosed at stage 1, survival rate ranges between 68 and 92 percent.
Cytoskeleton-associated protein 4 (CKAP4), a new protein could have the potential as a lung cancer biomarker. This biomarker is considered a monoclonal antibody – one used to fight cancer in immunotherapy. These monoclonal antibodies will recognize appropriate proteins on cells.
For this current study, the antibody KU- Lu-1 was used to determine whether it could recognize any cancer proteins among the blood of 271 lung cancer patients. At the same time, they had also studied the behavior of KU- Lu-1 among the blood of 100 healthy patients. Ultimately, CKAP4 antibody was detected in lung cancer tumor and tissue cells.
Significantly enough, the biomarker sensitivity continued high in stage 1 lung cancer, meaning that the CKAP4 blood levels were high in patients in the early stages.
To conclude, the results of this study provide significant evidence that the CKAP4 protein may be a new early serodiagnostic marker for lung cancer.