Researchers Develop $60 Blood Test That Detects Advanced Lung Cancer With 93% Accuracy

A team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has developed a blood test that can identify advanced lung cancer in more than nine out of ten patients, and they did it without the expensive genetic sequencing that has long been the standard approach. The test costs about sixty dollars and can be completed in two to three days using equipment already available in most clinical laboratories.

The innovation centers on a simple biological fact: cancer cells leave traces of themselves in the bloodstream. Specifically, they release fragments of DNA that carry distinctive chemical markings—a phenomenon called methylation, where certain molecules attach to DNA and alter how genes behave without changing the genetic code itself. The researchers extract these cell-free DNA fragments from a blood sample, then use an enzyme to attach fluorescent markers to the methylated sites. When the labeled DNA is placed on a microarray and scanned with light, the resulting pattern reveals whether the sample carries the molecular signature of lung cancer.

In their initial study, the researchers tested this approach on 103 people: fifty-one with lung cancer and fifty-two without. They identified a diagnostic signature based on 170 specific genomic regions, then validated it on a separate group of patients they did not know the status of beforehand. For patients with stage 2, 3, or 4 lung cancer, the test achieved 93.1 percent sensitivity—meaning it correctly identified the disease—and 90.3 percent specificity, meaning it correctly ruled out cancer in healthy people. The researchers also discovered that the methylation patterns differed between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, the two major forms of non-small cell lung cancer, suggesting the technology might eventually identify tumor type as well as presence.

The stakes are substantial. Lung cancer killed approximately 1.9 million people worldwide in 2024, making it both the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death globally. Current screening relies on low-dose CT scans, which do save lives by catching tumors earlier. But CT screening has a significant problem: suspicious nodules are common, and many turn out to be benign. False-positive rates are substantial enough that patients often undergo additional scans and invasive procedures for findings that are not cancer. A reliable blood test could help doctors decide which CT findings warrant further investigation, reducing unnecessary procedures and the anxiety they create.

What makes this test particularly practical is that it avoids the computational complexity and expense of many other blood-based cancer tests. Many liquid biopsies rely on next-generation sequencing, which requires specialized equipment and extensive analysis. This approach instead uses fluorescent labeling and microarray technology—tools that exist in standard clinical laboratories. That simplicity could make the test far more accessible than alternatives that require sending samples to specialized centers.

The researchers also observed something intriguing about treatment monitoring. Among patients they followed over time, changes in their DNA methylation patterns mirrored what doctors saw on imaging scans. When patients responded to treatment, their molecular profiles shifted toward those of healthy people. When tumors did not respond, the patterns remained unchanged. If this finding holds up in larger studies, blood tests could give doctors another way to track whether therapy is working—potentially faster and less invasively than waiting for imaging results.

But the researchers are careful about what remains unknown. The strongest performance reported was for stage 2-4 cancers; the test's ability to detect stage 1 disease remains unclear. The study involved only 103 people, a small number for establishing a diagnostic tool. Much larger and more diverse trials will be needed to determine how the test performs in routine screening populations and in people with other conditions that might alter DNA methylation patterns. Prof. Yuval Ebenstein, who led the research, frames the work as a step toward making cancer diagnosis more accessible and less expensive without sacrificing accuracy—a tool designed to complement imaging rather than replace it. The next phase will determine whether that promise holds.