New British blood test could spot tumours years ahead

The ground-breaking test has been developed from research carried out at the University of Nottingham to help detect cancer as much as five years earlier than current testing methods.

Oncimmune Ltd's new technique replicates the cancer proteins that trigger the body's response to the disease, as well as robotic technology to measure the response.

Based on the early work of breast cancer specialist and the university's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Professor of Surgery John Robertson, Oncimmune has made a reproducible commercial test for lung cancer.

The EarlyCDT-Lung test will be launched nationally in the USA this month followed by a UK launch early next year.

Oncimmune was founded in 2003 to commercialise technology developed in Professor Robertson's laboratories.

Executive chairman Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley said: "We believe this test, along with the others we will launch in the next few years, will lead to a better prognosis for a significant number of cancer sufferers."

Initial research results were gathered using blood samples from patients with breast cancer and a group of high risk women attending for annual mammography, the university said.

As well as identifying the signal in the blood of a percentage of women when they developed breast cancer, the results also showed the signal could be found in some of the high-risk patients who had given blood samples for a number of years during annual check-ups and before they were subsequently diagnosed with cancer.

When these samples were run retrospectively, Prof Robertson showed the test could have detected more than half of the cancers up to four years before they were actually diagnosed.

He said: "I am very pleased that the initial exciting research data that we produced in the laboratories at The University of Nottingham a number of years ago have been translated by Oncimmune to the first of many tests that will help us identify cancer early."

He said the work on lung cancer followed through a European Union grant involving both the university and Oncimmune in a collaboration with a number of European partners.

A study involving researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the USA recorded similar results using blood samples from a study of CT scans to screen for lung cancer where antibodies were detected up to five years before the cancers were diagnosed.

The EarlyCDT-Lung test will target high-risk people such as long-term and ex-smokers, with the potential to detect the early stages of lung cancer up to five years before a tumour appears.

Initially it will be offered via primary care physicians and pulmonologists in the USA for high risk asymptomatic patients as well as patients who have indeterminate lung nodules.