Overview
- A multinational team reported in Cell that a 14‑protein plasma signature can predict who will develop lung cancer more than five years before diagnosis based on machine learning of UK Biobank data and validation in eight global cohorts.
- Laboratory and mouse studies linked the signature to an IL‑1β driven inflammatory lung environment and to expansion of KAC precursor cells, a cellular state that can progress to cancer when mutations are present.
- Re‑analysis of the 2017 CANTOS trial found participants with a high signature had nearly half the lung cancer risk when treated with the IL‑1β blocker canakinumab, with an estimated number needed to treat of about 55 in that subgroup.
- The finding could expand risk assessment beyond smoking history by identifying never‑smokers and pollution‑exposed people at elevated risk, but no validated clinical test or approved prevention indication exists yet.
- Immediate next steps are developing a standardized assay, confirming the signature prospectively in new cohorts, and running randomized prevention trials to weigh cancer benefit against harms such as the infection risk seen with IL‑1β blockade.