title: Quantification of plasma DNA as a screening tool for lung cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent studies suggest that circulating DNA 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 this study was to evaluate the performance of plasma DNA quantification in discriminating lung cancer from the healthy and benign lung disease.
  
  
  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 by the receiver operating characteristic curve.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Plasma DNA values were significantly increased in lung cancer patients, especially in those with metastases, and in benign lung disease patients compared with that in the healthy individuals (P < 0.001, respectively). The values in lung cancer patients were significantly increased compared with that in the benign lung disease patients (P < 0.001). The area under the curve was 0.96 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.92 - 0.99] for the healthy versus lung cancer, 0.73 (95% CI 0.64 - 0.83) for lung cancer versus benign lung disease, and 0.86 (95% CI 0.80 - 0.91) for lung cancer versus the healthy and benign lung disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Plasma DNA quantification has a strong power to discriminate lung cancer from the healthy and from the healthy and benign lung disease, less power to discriminate lung cancer from benign lung disease. Plasma DNA quantification may be useful as a screening tool for lung cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730, China. xgsh62@sina.com
authors.forename: Guang-shun
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Ai-rong
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Long-yun
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yan-ning
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Shu-jun
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Cheng
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging
chemical_list: D004247:DNA