A novel biomarker protein panel for lung cancer, a promising first step

Lung cancer (LC) is the most lethal cancer worldwide in both genders, tobacco consumption is causally associated with lung cancer, around 85% of all patients worldwide have tobacco consumption history (1,2). The 5-year survival of patients diagnosed at early stage and localized lung cancer is about 50%, which is considerably better compared to later stages (3). However, around 61% of patients are diagnosed in advanced stages (III and IV), when the therapeutic options are limited and the prognosis is usually poor, with a 5-year survival of only 5–15% (4,5). Even though important breakthroughs, progress in biomedicine, new diagnostic tools and the development of targeted scheme treatments, the main challenge with LC is to improve early detection of the patients, because according to different projections, the number of LC cases is expected to raise in the next years (4,6).