EarlyCDT Lung
EarlyCDT Lung is a proven blood test for detecting lung cancer up to four years before symptoms appear and before the current standard of care. It provides a cost-effective solution for NHS England Trusts to save patient lives through early detection
Triages patients at high-risk of developing lung cancer into a CT scan by detecting the elevated presence of lung cancer-specific autoantibodies generated by the body’s immune system as a natural defense against cancer cells.
It can be used to reduce demand on CT resource (the test has a low FN) and also provide an option for addressing health inequalities in hard to reach patients.
Details
EarlyCDT Lung is a simple blood test shown to detect lung cancer on average four years earlier compared to the current standard clinical diagnosis.
Used as a screening device, a positive test result can triage patients for lung cancer CT screening.
75% of lung cancers are diagnosed at stage 3 or 4, which falls significantly short of the CORE20 PLUS5 target for 75% of cancers to be diagnosed at stage 1 or 2 by 2028. EarlyCDT Lung has already collected significant evidence to demonstrate how it can support achieving these targets through early lung cancer detection.
The test has the potential to be embedded within a community setting, as the test has been validated to be used with a finger-prick blood collection kit. This approach could also be used to reach those in more rural areas, widen access to lung cancer screening, and support reducing health inequalities.
Evidence
EarlyCDT Lung has been thoroughly validated for the early detection of lung cancer.
More than 120,000 tests were run during development and validation before the commercial launch and case-controlled trials have shown detection at all stages and in all types of lung cancer.
Post launch several studies have evaluated the performance of EarlyCDT Lung in detecting early-stage lung cancer in the real world.
A randomised, controlled trial with 12,208 participants run by NHS Scotland demonstrated a statistically significant 36% reduction in late-stage diagnosis in the intervention arm, compared to the control arm which followed current UK standard of care. EarlyCDT Lung detected 52.2% of early-stage lung cancers.
A recent study that took place in Norfolk & Waveney ICS, involving 1,919 patients identified nine patients who had lung cancer in the early stage. Modelling suggested if the study were rolled out across the whole of Great Yarmouth, 28/29 patients would be diagnosed with cancer in an early stage with a 40% take-up. With a 40% up-take, the cost per QALYs gained was calculated to be £27,735, which is below the £30,000 cost-effective threshold set by NICE guidelines.
