Evaluation Of Plasma DNA Quantification As A Screening Tool For Lung Cancer

Background: Published studies suggest that circulating cell-free DNA quantification may be a potential tumor marker for lung cancer, but most of these studies are conducted between healthy controls and lung cancer patients, with few or no benign lung disease patients included. The objective of our study was to evaluate the performance of plasma DNA quantification in discriminating lung cancer from the healthy and benign lung disease, which is of significant importance for the evaluation of its translational usefulness in clinical practice.Methods: Plasma DNA was extracted with a QIAamp DNA Blood Midi kit and quantified by a PicoGreen dsDNA quantitation kit in 44 healthy individuals, 36 benign lung disease patients and 67 lung cancer patients. Discrimination power was evaluated through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Our study showed that the values of plasma DNA quantification were significantly increased in lung cancer patients in all types, subtypes, and stages, especially in those with metastases (all P values < 0.001), compared with that in the healthy individuals and benign lung disease patients. The values...