Sputum Cytometry as diagnostic tool for early lung cancer detection

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide. Several studies have evaluated the relationship between chronic bronchitis and lung cancer. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease refers to chronic bronchitis and emphysema, a pair of two commonly co-existing diseases of the lungs. The leading cause of both lung cancer and COPD is well recognized in tobacco use. The aim of our study is to assess the capability of Image Cytometry to identify preneoplastic lesions that occur in smokers using 5cER as diagnostic parameter that could help clinicians in lung cancer’s early detection. In our study, the sputum of 80 smokers, aged 50-80 years, was collected. Out of the total, 79% had a diagnosis with typical diagnostics procedure (both COPD of various grade and lung cancer), 21% had no definitive diagnosis. In the first case, 5cER value confirmed both cancer and no-cancer diagnosis with sensitivity and specificity of 73% and 86%. In the second case, the identification of lung cancer or no lung cancer patients had a sensitivity and specificity of 72% and 67%. Moreover, our aim is to identify predictive markers and to understand if they have a correlation with ploidy status. Preliminary data show that same genes have positive correlation (r > 0,5) and same negative correlation (r < - 0,5). The future perspective of our study is to increase the number of samples to improve our data, to enlarge molecular studies using new technologies as microarray or RNA-Sequencing.