How a Cheek Swab Could Help Fight Lung Cancer
Early detection is pivotal to treating lung cancer. According to the American Lung Association (ALA), the five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 56 percent for cases when the disease is still localized. Unfortunately, per the ALA, only 16 percent of cases are diagnosed at that stage, and when the disease has spread to other organs, the survival rate plummets to five percent.
These difficult statistics make early detection of lung cancer – the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States – an urgent matter. Recent research from Professor Vadim Backman and the Center for Physical Genomics and Engineering (CPGE) could one day help doctors make that crucial discovery earlier and save more lives.