Look around your target: a new approach to early diagnosis of lung cancer

Lung cancer is the first oncologic cause of death worldwide (1). Late onset of symptoms and, thus, late diagnosis is one determinant of poor survival. Risk factors are known for selection of asymptomatic subjects at higher risk of lung cancer (2). Secondary prevention by early diagnosis was proved effective by screening trials based on computed tomography (CT) in heavy smokers (3,4), yet with the major limitation of unprecedented high number of nodules detected (5) for which accurate characterization is mandatory with the aim of reducing false positives and associated relevant drawbacks (6-9).