Circulating proteome for pulmonary nodule malignancy.

Background: Although lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography is rolling out in many areas of the world, differentiating indeterminate pulmonary nodules remains a major challenge. We conducted one of the first systematic investigations of circulating protein markers to differentiate malignant from benign screen-detected pulmonary nodules.

Methods: Based on 4 international low-dose computed tomography screening studies, we assayed 1078 protein markers using prediagnostic blood samples from 1253 participants based on a nested case-control design.