New perspectives on early detection and diagnosis of lung cancer: the potential and challenges of biomarker screening

Lung cancer, as one of the most common malignant tumors in the world, poses a serious threat to public health. Early detection and diagnosis of lung cancer is crucial to improving cure and survival rates. With the advancement of medical technology, biomarker screening has gradually become a new way to detect and diagnose lung cancer early. What are the importance, applications, and challenges of biomarker screening in the early detection and diagnosis of lung cancer?

Biomarkers are a series of biochemical indicators that reflect physiological or pathological changes in the body. In the field of lung cancer, some specific biomarkers can be used as auxiliary detection and diagnostic tools for lung cancer. Currently, commonly used lung cancer tumor markers in clinical practice include carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1), squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen (SCCA), neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and progastrin-releasing peptide (ProGRP). These tumor markers play an important role in the diagnosis, efficacy monitoring and prognosis evaluation of lung cancer.

The sensitivity of the combined detection of lung cancer by 6 tumor markers (CEA+CA15.3+CYFRA21-1+SCCA+NSE+ProGRP) can reach 88.5% and the specificity can reach 82%. This means that this detection method can identify lung cancer patients more accurately. However, the detection effect of these tumor markers on early lung cancer and precancerous lesions has not been supported by large-scale clinical data. Therefore, we need more research to verify its value in early lung cancer screening.

In addition to traditional tumor marker detection, in recent years, lung cancer autoantibody spectrum detection has gradually attracted attention as a new biomarker detection method. The human immune system can produce specific autoantibodies in response to growing tumors. After a series of screening and combination optimization, multiple autoantibody spectrum detection plays an important role in early screening of lung cancer. my country's first non-invasive serum detection tool for screening high-risk populations for lung cancer - a detection kit containing 7 lung cancer autoantibody spectra (p53+GAGE7+PGP9.5+CAGE+MAGEA1+GBU4-5+SOX2) was approved for marketing in 2015. This provides new possibilities for early screening of lung cancer, but its role in the detection of lung cancer precancerous lesions still needs to be further verified.

In addition, new biomarkers such as circulating tumor cells (CTC) and peripheral blood microRNA are also being studied. These new technologies have potential value in lung cancer screening for asymptomatic high-risk populations, but there is currently a lack of clinical evidence that they are superior to imaging examinations, so they are not suitable for lung cancer screening and early diagnosis alone.

Although biomarker screening has brought new hope for the early detection and diagnosis of lung cancer, it still faces many challenges. First, the specificity of most biomarkers in lung cancer is not high, which may lead to misdiagnosis. Second, many biomarkers are expressed at low levels in the early stages of cancer and are difficult to detect. In addition, issues such as the stability of biomarkers, standardization of detection methods, and feasibility of clinical applications also need to be further addressed. With the deepening of research and the advancement of technology, we expect biomarker screening to play a greater role in the prevention and treatment of lung cancer in the future and bring more health benefits to the public.