A multicentric, case–control study was conducted to identify serum proteins for diagnosing lung cancer.
A 4-marker panel improved lung cancer prediction beyond that of known risk factors.
The biomarkers can detect lung cancer especially stage I–II from healthy controls or benign nodule patients.
Currently, low dose chest computed tomography (LDCT) leads to a high false-positive result. Here we identified a panel of four serum proteins, which provides the potential for accurate diagnosis of lung cancer in a multicentric study. More importantly, the biomarkers allowed accurate detection of lung cancer cases especially stage I-II cases from normal and benign nodule subjects. These results suggest that the 4-protein panel might be a useful biomarker for diagnosing lung cancer patients and help discriminate early stage patients, which may serve as an adjuvant diagnosis tool for LDCT scanning in the future.