A better test for lung cancer?

LUNG cancer diagnosis; BRONCHOSCOPY; SPIRA, Avrum; RESPIRATORY organs; TUMORS; MEDICAL screening; DIAGNOSIS

The article reports that a new test might enable doctors to catch lung cancers that are missed by a commonly used diagnostic tool. A bronchoscopy, in which a doctor inserts a lighted, flexible scope down a person's windpipe to visually examine the cells, can detect lung cancer, but it misses twice as many cases as it predicts. To more quickly detect cancers that are missed by bronchoscopy, Avrum Spira, a pulmonary care physician at Boston University School of Medicine and his colleagues, scanned genes in lung-lining cells and found that 80 are inordinately active or quiescent in cancerous cells compared with their behavior in normal cells.