JUNE 24, 2015, 10:12 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2015, 10:14 PM
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Researchers at The Valley Hospital and a private lab have developed a blood test that they hope will someday help to detect early-stage lung cancer when it’s most treatable, officials said this week.
If the preliminary findings are replicated in a larger study, oncologists may have a cheaper, less invasive and more accurate test to diagnose the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in the nation.
The research focuses on identifying biomarkers — such as a certain protein in the blood — to screen for cancer at the molecular level.
The field of study under way at the Ridgewood hospital and in many other institutions nationwide is known as precision medicine. Researchers hope that it will radically change the way disease is detected, how drugs are developed, and how treatment can be tailored to an individual based on a patient’s genetic makeup to prevent side effects and yield better results.
“It’s detected early so the chemotherapy and radiation can better target the cancer,” said Dr. Ganepola A.P. Ganepola, director of the Center for Cancer Research and Genomic Medicine at Valley, who developed the blood test with the Wistar Institute, a private lab based in Philadelphia.
