Background: Lung cancer (LC) is the leading cause of deaths caused by cancer worldwide. A diagnostic test for LC is needed for monitoring high-risk populations.
Patients and methods: Fifty-seven markers were measured using multiplex immunoassays of plasma of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); (245 men, 114 women, 1 unknown), asthma (67 men, 111 women, 2 unknown) and of healthy controls (165 men, 122 women, 1 unknown). Mass spectrometry was used for biomarker discovery. A support vector machine (SVM) was used for data analysis.
Results: When all biomarkers and both genders were co-analyzed, SVM classified NSCLC and asthma with an accuracy of 0.94. Restricting to NSCLC versus healthy using best subsets of variables (males: epidermal growth factor (EGF), interleukin-8 (IL-8), soluble Fas (sFas), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1); females: EGF, soluble cluster of differentiation 40 (sCD40) ligand, IL-8) yielded sensitivity and specificity of 1. Expression of eleven mass spectrometric biomarkers differed between pathologies.
Conclusion: Significant inter-pathology and gender differences between biomarkers may improve diagnosis of LC.