Blood testing at the time of an individual’s lung cancer diagnosis has been found to speed up treatment decisions regardless of disease stage, according to research due to be presented at the CHEST Annual Meeting 2016 in Los Angeles this week.
Compared with traditional testing of biopsy specimens, the blood tests showed both important diagnostic information much faster (within 72 hours) regardless of disease stage, and significantly decreased the waiting time between diagnosis and the start of treatment.
The research team hopes that adoption of blood-testing at the time of diagnosis may provide rapid results to aid in treatment decisions, decrease time of treatment, and facilitate more informed prognostic conversations with patients to speed up care and improve overall patient experience.
Read the ERS news article with links to the research article and further information