Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the world’s top cancer killer, claiming more than 1.3 million lives per year. Lung cancer was once thought to be a smokers’ disease, but global statistics show that 25% of all cases are not attributable to an individual’s own tobacco use, making lung cancer in non-smokers the seventh leading cause of cancer death worldwide.
Currently, lung cancer is tested for with an imaging test, such as a chest X-ray or a specialized X-ray like the computed tomography (CT) scan or the spiral CT scan. However, aggressive tumors are not always discovered soon enough, and many people die despite annual CT scans. Even with the most advanced CT scanning, it is difficult to differentiate benign from cancerous nodules; critical parameters like degree of aggressiveness cannot be determined.
Canary is developing diagnostics to detect lethal lung cancers at a stage when they are most curable. To that end, Canary has assembled a team of experts who are collaborating to discover and validate biomarkers for blood and imaging tests that together will identify lethal lung cancers so that they can be removed. Our goal is to move effective early detection cancer tests into the hands of clinical providers so that patients can begin to benefit as soon as possible.
Progress & Results
- Multi-institutional project for biomarker discovery in lung cancer among non-smokers formed in 2009
- Testing of cell lines, tissues and blood samples from never smokers by multiple techniques completed in 2011 (data analyses ongoing)
- Molecular imaging agent tested in lung cancer patients for the first time in 2011 (trials ongoing)
→ Meet the Lung Cancer Research Team
→ Learn more about Lung Cancer Clinical Studies
