Lung cancer is responsible for the most cancer deaths in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute, it will kill about 158,000 people in 2015, more than breast, prostate, and colon cancer combined. Because lung cancer grows and spreads so quickly, many healthy (and former) smokers undergo diagnostic screening CT scans of the chest, which can detect small lesions in the lungs that may be an early sign of the disease. But abnormal results often lead to painful, invasive, and often unnecessary biopsies. Avrum Spira has found a better path to diagnosis.

For more than a decade, Spira (ENG’02), Alexander Graham Bell Professor of Healthcare Entrepreneurship and a School of Medicine professor of medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine, and bioinformatics, has been developing molecular tests to detect lung cancer early, without invasive biopsies. The work has been done with Jerome Brody, a MED professor of medicine, and Marc Lenburg, a MED associate professor of medicine, bioinformatics, and pathology. In May 2015, the molecular diagnostics company Veracyte, Inc., released a new, noninvasive test for the disease based on biomarkers developed by Spira and his collaborators. The test, called Percepta, fared well in clinical trials and could be available to patients in less than a year.

Avrum Spira. Photo by Vernon Doucette

During the Percepta test, which is performed at the same time as a bronchoscopy, the doctor uses a small brush to obtain a sample of normal-looking cells in the upper airway and sends it to a lab for genetic testing. Spira discovered that these cells, while appearing healthy, contain genomic markers that signal a high likelihood of cancer elsewhere in the lung. The test, when used in conjunction with bronchoscopy, identified 97 percent of the lung cancers, compared to 75 percent for bronchoscopy alone.

The test is not yet widely available, nor is it covered by insurance. Veracyte has launched the test in an early access program, offering it in a limited number of medical centers in the United States to gather feedback on how the test is used and its clinical impact. If this trial launch is successful, the Percepta test could be made widely available in early 2016.

A version of this article originally appeared on BU Research.