Rarecells has announced the results of the first study to demonstrate that the ISET by Rarecells test can allow the diagnosis of lung cancer among COPD patients. The independent study, titled “Sentinel Circulating Tumor Cells Allow early Diagnosis of Lung Cancer in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease,” was published in the PLOS One open-access journal.

For the study, researchers used the ISET sentinel cancer cell searching technology to screen for CTCs in COPD patients.

A Rarecells news release indicates that the study determined the presence of CTCs in 245 subjects without cancer, including 168 COPD patients, non-smoking healthy individuals, and control smokers. COPD patients were monitored annually by ISET and low-dose spiral CT, an imaging tool to detect lung cancers. CTCs were detected by ISET in five of the 168 patients with COPD, 1 to 4 years before a lung nodule became detectable by CT scans. This led to prompt surgical resection of the nodules, which clinically successful as all five patients were free of any sign of tumor, including CTC detected by ISET, 16 months after surgery, according to Rarecells.

Paul Hofman, MD, PhD, states, “This study provides proof-of-concept for the early detection and treatment of cancer in patients who have not yet been diagnosed using traditional methods.”

Hofman adds, “This is extremely encouraging because most who die from lung cancer—as well as many of the most deadly tumors—die because traditional diagnostic methods do not detect these tumors until it is too late. ISET holds the long-awaited promise of detecting cancer long before it devastates the human body. We are now eager to conduct a larger, multi-center study to further validate ISET as a tool that can help avert the tremendous suffering caused by late-stage tumors and the enormous cost to treat them.”

Raymond Barnhill, MD, says, “This is a highly innovative blood filtration method to test for not only lung cancers, but all solid tumors at their earliest stages of development when they are simply not otherwise detectable with current technology. I’m encouraged by these results.”

Source: Rarecells