The sooner the better

For 52-year-old Walther Dieckmann*, a car accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While the CT scan at University Hospital Zurich showed no injury to his chest or spine, it did reveal a small lump in his right lung. Further investigation confirmed the suspicion that he had lung cancer in its early stages. He immediately had surgery to remove the affected segment of his lung.

“If we discover lung cancer at an early stage, patients like Walther Dieckmann have good chances of recovery after an operation,” explains Isabelle Schmitt-Opitz, director of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at USZ. The problem is, however, that in most cases patients notice no sign of the disease for weeks or even months, and when the first symptoms do appear they can be very unspecific. At present fewer than one half of the 4,300 or so people who contract lung cancer in Switzerland every year have the disease detected at an early stage.

Schmitt-Opitz and her team are now looking for biomarkers to be able to diagnose lung cancer earlier and more easily. “Our research concerns the most frequent form of lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer,” explains resident physician Raphael Werner. “Almost 90 percent of patients with lung cancer have this sub-type.” Currently Werner is examining tissue samples from lung cancer patients for molecular components of cancer cells deposited in the blood vessels. He explains the approach: “If we’re able to identify the tumor-specific substances, in the future we’ll hopefully also be able to detect lung cancer in the blood.” The research is supported by a donation from the Iten Kohaut Stiftung to the USZ Foundation.

If the researchers find biomarkers for diagnosing the disease, physicians will be able to regularly screen patients in risk groups, such as smokers and those with a family history of the disease, on a precautionary basis. Family doctors would also be able to have blood samples from patients with a suspected case tested for lung cancer – using a very straightforward method without radiation. Then many more patients would have as good a chance of being cured as Walther Dieckmann.

*anonymized