A Prospective Interventional Study on Early Screening for Lung Cancer Using Liquid Biopsy

Overview

This project aims to establish the MERCURY pilot screening program as part of the "Love Lung Project," employing a novel concept of lung cancer screening with the assistance of low-dose computer tomography (LDCT). By using clinical pathology as the gold standard, it will parallelly compare the performance (with a sensitivity of ≥90%) of the MERCURY early lung cancer screening model against the LDCT-only screening group within the "Love Lung Project." Ultimately, the objective is to reduce the proportion of overtreatment, achieve earlier staging, and extend patient survival, thus enhancing clinical value.

This study is the first international prospective interventional study for lung cancer screening. It designates the "Love Lung Program" using Low-Dose Computed Tomography (LDCT) screening as the control group and the MERCURY screening group as the intervention group. Participants from the general population were enrolled and randomly assigned to either group in a 1:1 ratio. The MERCURY group plans to collect baseline peripheral blood samples from 2,972 individuals for whole genome sequencing (WGS) based on plasma circulating free DNA (cfDNA). This will facilitate a comprehensive analysis of the fragmentomics characteristics of cfDNA. Through the MERCURY early lung cancer screening model, individuals potentially at early stages of lung cancer will be identified. Those showing positive signs will subsequently undergo sequential LDCT to further confirm lung cancer status, eventually confirmed via surgery or pathology. To minimize ethical risks, the negative cases will receive additional LDCT after three months to further confirm their lung status. The control group under the "Love Lung Program" will follow standard LDCT screening procedures with the same number of participants; those with positive LDCT results will undergo clinical diagnosis, while those with negative results will only be followed up for lung status. Relying on the "Love Lung Program," the objective is to establish a new concept of lung cancer screening that precedes with MERCURY screening assisted by LDCT diagnostics.