Blood Test on a Chip Detects Lung Cancer Without DNA Sequencing

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a blood test for diagnosing lung cancer that skips DNA sequencing altogether. The method, described in a study in Nature Precision Oncology, detects a chemical fingerprint left by cancer cells in cell-free DNA circulating in the blood. In the study, the test distinguished lung cancer patients from healthy individuals with 93.1% sensitivity and 90.3% specificity in patients with stage 2-4 disease. 

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and current early diagnosis relies mainly on CT scans, which often flag suspicious findings that turn out to be benign, sometimes leading to unnecessary biopsies and surgeries. Existing liquid biopsies, meanwhile, typically depend on DNA sequencing, a costly process that requires substantial computational infrastructure. The new approach avoids this: after extracting cell-free DNA from a blood sample, researchers label it with a light-emitting marker, bind it to a DNA chip, and scan it optically to read the resulting light patterns, which reveal the biological fingerprint of lung cancer. 

The study enrolled 103 participants, 51 lung cancer patients and 52 healthy controls. After a training phase, the researchers built a signature of 170 genomic regions and tested it on a separate, blinded validation cohort, achieving high diagnostic accuracy. The test could also distinguish between the two main lung cancer subtypes, adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, based on distinct DNA signatures.

The team also explored the test’s potential for monitoring treatment response. Changes in the chemical fingerprint tracked with imaging results: in patients who responded to treatment, the fingerprint shifted toward a healthy profile, while non-responders showed no significant change. The researchers note this is a preliminary finding that requires larger studies to confirm.

The test currently takes two to three days and costs about $60 per sample. According to senior author Yuval Ebenstein, “Our goal is to make blood tests for cancer diagnosis more accessible, simpler, and less expensive without compromising accuracy. We have developed a new approach that does not require genetic sequencing but instead identifies the tumor’s chemical ‘fingerprint’ with light, using a technology that can be implemented in standard clinical laboratories. This is a significant step toward developing a tool that can complement imaging tests and help physicians diagnose lung cancer and monitor treatment effectiveness.”