Simple blood test could lead to personalised lung cancer treatment

A single blood test could help doctors predict how lung cancer patients will respond to treatment before therapy begins, researchers have found.

University of Queensland-led research focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease, and showed how analysing proteins in a blood sample could support earlier and better-informed treatment decisions.

Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe from UQ’s Frazer Institute said the approach could change how treatment decisions are made.

“This is a step towards truly personalised lung cancer care,” Dr Kulasinghe said.

“At the moment, clinicians often have to make treatment decisions without a clear picture of how a patient will respond.

“What we’re showing is that information already exists in the blood.”

The research analysed blood samples from NSCLC patients at Princess Alexandra Hospital before and after surgery and immunotherapy to track how protein levels changed over time.

Using advanced technology, the team measured thousands of proteins and applied statistical modelling to identify signals linked to treatment response and disease progression.

“If we can tell from a blood sample who is most likely to relapse, or who will respond to immunotherapy, we can match patients to the right treatment sooner,” Dr Kulasinghe said.

Lung cancer kills more people than any other cancer, and immunotherapy can cost patients up to half a million dollars a year.

The findings were validated using an independent testing platform.

Dr Aaron Kilgallon, from the Queensland Spatial Biology Centre, a collaboration between UQ and Wesley Research Institute, said the clinical implications were significant.

“Blood-based monitoring would be far less invasive than repeat biopsies and could give us earlier warning of recurrence,” he said.

“That’s a meaningful shift for patients.”

While further research is needed before clinical use, the team is exploring if the method can be applied to other cancers.

“We want to use a patient’s own biology to guide treatment decisions at diagnosis,” Dr Kulasinghe said.

Read the research in npj Precision Oncology.

Collaboration and acknowledgements