Blood Test Detects Stage 1 Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer is known to be one of the deadliest cancers due to the difficulty of detecting it in the early stages due to the lack of nerves in the lungs. Lung cancer does not normally cause pain in patients until a tumor has already formed to a generous size―and by then it is usually too late. However, a startup company in Israel is looking to change this and is developing a blood test that could detect lung cancer in earlier stages.

“If the cancer is detected at stage 1, the survival rate is 80 percent,” explains Giora Davidovits, CEO of Israeli startup Savicell, “If the cancer is not detected until stage 3, the survival rate drops to 13-14%. By stage 4, it’s down to just 4 percent.”

Davidovits also explains that most lung cancers found early are usually the result of patients undergoing radiological screenings for entirely different issues. They will also go through CT scanning if their doctor suspects them to have lung cancer. If a lump (nodule) is found, a biopsy will be performed to determine what is going on. However, a biopsy is a risky procedure and since nodules are found to be benign 95% of the time, doctors tend to put it and look to CT scans for any changes over time.

Savicell’s alternative is a simple blood test that can detect cancer early on in stages as low as level 1, using a rapidly growing method known as liquid biopsy―a market, that as of 2018, is worth over $1.2 billion (Zion Market Research).

Liquid biopsies are based on sequencing a patient’s genetic material to search for the cancerous material that tumor secretes, which can be difficult to locate. “These kinds of tests are very good at defining disease and showing which genetic segments have been impacted,” Davidovits explains. “But they have difficulties when it comes to early detection at stages 1 and 2.”

However, Savicell is trying a different approach. Rather than gene sequencing, the company measures the metabolic state of immune cells that are circulating in the blood. This is a new field called immunometabolism, and it has revealed that immune cells take specific metabolic signatures when they encounter different diseases.

Savicell has created a diagnostic kit with 384 “wells,” each containing one of sixteen chemical stimulants in increasing concentration. When the immune cells from the blood drawn from the patient come into contact with the stimulants, their metabolism is activated and they start to react. If the pattern matches, the well-shield platform can detect cancer with 91% sensitivity.

Savicell’s test would be able to detect cancer within a matter of hours, versus the days, weeks or even months current processes take.

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