Case studies
Case study one: early detection
Barbara
A 69-year-old female with a 30 pack-year* smoking history presented with a cough, congestion and some pleuritic pain.
Medical information
She was found to have a spiculated non-calcified, 15 mm nodule in the left upper lobe suspicious for malignancy or an inflammatory process. Serial follow-up CT showed stable findings at 3 months, and decreased size from 15x13 mm to 12x11 mm at 6 months. PET/CT revealed the nodule to have an SUV of 2.2, with no other foci of uptake. Because of the decreasing size and low FDG avidity, conventional guidelines indicated continued imaging follow-up. EarlyCDT®-Lung revealed an elevated level of autoantibodies to GBU4-5, indicating the patient is at high risk of having a lung cancer. A left upper lobectomy revealed a 23 mm well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, stage Ia.
Key outcome
Barbara went to her doctor suspecting she had bronchitis. She was sent for a CT scan and the results showed a small spot on her lung. This spot was investigated further using an early detection blood test which showed that Barbara had stage one lung cancer. The key outcome of the early detection of Barbara's lung cancer was that she was able to have the tumour removed before it spread. This also meant that she did not have to endure chemotherapy, radiotherapy or any other form of treatment.
*A pack-year = 20 cigarettes a day. A 30 pack-year history means 20 cigarettes a day for 30 years.