Researchers reported this week at a cancer meeting in California that a blood test under study to help in the diagnosis of lung cancer looks very promising.

They predict that if the test is perfected then it could significantly spare patients the need to undergo invasive procedures like biopsies when lung cancer is suspected.

Steven Dubinett, MD, professor of medicine and pathology and director of the Lung Cancer Research Program at the Jonsson comprehensive Cancer Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, said “Currently, 20% to 25% of surgeries done for suspected lung cancer turn out to be benign diagnoses.”

According to the American Cancer Society, about 219,000 new cases of lung cancer were expected to be diagnosed in the U. S. in 2009 along with 159,000 deaths.

Dubinett and his colleagues assembled a panel of 40 potential lung cancer biomarkers. Biomarkers are substances found in the blood that can be measured and detected with blood tests.

Researchers took blood samples from 90 lung cancer patients and from 56 people at high risk for lung cancer because of a heavy smoking history who had quit or at least a year.

33 of the 40 biomarkers were different between the lung cancer patients and those who were not diagnosed with lung cancer.