Lung cancer diagnostic assay

A method for detecting early stage lung cancer in persons at risk for lung cancer or without radiographically detectable lung cancer, comprising:

• (a) obtaining a fluid sample from persons at risk for lung cancer or without radiographically detectable lung cancer;
• (b) testing said sample with a panel comprising panel members that can detect occult and/or pre-malignant lung cancer markers up to 5 years prior to being identifiable by CT testing;
• and
• (c) selecting persons who tested positive in step (b) for periodic examination for lung cancer, wherein lung cancer is determined to be present in said person and said person is a candidate for radiographic screening:
• (a) if said panel comprises at least four members and at least one of said members detects lung cancer markers in said sample;
• or
• (b) if upon:
• (i) obtaining a normalized value correlated with presence of each lung cancer markers in said sample,
• (ii) aggregating said normalized values to yield a sum, and
• (iii) comparing said sum to a reference value, which is the predictive value of said markers for the presence of lung cancer,
• said sum is at least 30% of said reference value.

A method for reducing the number of false positives from CT screening of patients at risk for lung cancer comprising the steps of:

• a) providing a blood test that has been demonstrated to detect lung cancer in a population of patients that have not been diagnosed previously with lung cancer;
• b) testing blood samples from said patients using said test;
• and
• c) screening by CT those patients with a positive blood test;
• d) wherein the number of false positives from the combination of the blood test with CT scanning is lower than the number of false positives with CT scanning alone.