FirstLook Lung offers lung cancer screening
that can be incorporated into routine bloodwork.
PEORIA,
Ill. and PALO ALTO,
Calif., May 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OSF
HealthCare, a 16-hospital integrated health system that serves
patients in Illinois and
Michigan, and DELFI Diagnostics,
Inc., a developer of accessible blood-based tests that deliver
a new way to enhance cancer detection, today announced a
collaboration to utilize DELFI's FirstLook Lung blood-based cancer
screening test to help improve screening rates. DELFI's
collaboration with OSF was recently highlighted by the Biden Cancer
Moonshot to expand accessibility to lung cancer screening.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths both
domestically and globally, and studies show that proactive annual
screening can reduce death rates by 20% or more.
Through focused outreach initiatives, OSF HealthCare has already
guided 35% of the Ministry's eligible patients in Illinois to receive a low-dose CT scan (LDCT),
the standard of care for lung cancer early detection. The goal is
to further increase screening among eligible OSF patients by
incorporating the FirstLook Lung liquid biopsy test into the
primary care setting. The test will be offered at 18 locations
initially, with plans to make it OSF Ministry-wide within a
year.
"FirstLook Lung, because it is a simple blood test, offers a way
to improve lung cancer screening in communities not currently
receiving it, and provides a result that can help patients and
their doctors decide together about proceeding with an LDCT scan,"
said Peter B. Bach, MD, DELFI's
Chief Medical Officer. "The goal is to detect the possibility of
cancer early through this test that is easy to incorporate into the
routine blood work of eligible patients who have not yet been
screened. We are proud to partner with OSF HealthCare to improve
the health of the communities they serve."
The test works by evaluating patterns of DNA fragments in the
blood that reveal the presence of lung cancer. In an independent
validation, FirstLook Lung was shown to have 80% sensitivity in a
screening population, including reliable detection of the earliest
stages of the disease. The test also demonstrated a negative
predictive value (NPV) of 99.8%, a measure of how unlikely it is
that lung cancer will be detected by LDCT if the FirstLook Lung
test returns a 'Not Elevated' result.
"Early detection of lung cancer is key to improving patient
outcomes, and we are confident that innovative, accessible new
screening approaches like FirstLook Lung will move the needle on
lung cancer screening rates among our patients," said James McGee, MD, radiation oncologist and
founding director of the OSF HealthCare Cancer Institute. "We are
encouraged that FirstLook Lung's advanced technology will not only
offer our patients a simpler way to enter the screening funnel but
will also give our practitioners the accurate data needed to make
the right decision about the next steps in lung cancer detection
for each patient."
Learn more about the service available through the OSF Cancer
Institute by calling 1-844-OSF-4-HOPE.
About Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the number one cause
of cancer death globally and in the
United States where it accounts for 25 percent of all cancer
deaths–just as many deaths as the other four cancers for which
screening is recommended combined (colon, prostate, breast, and
cervical cancer). Screening rates for those other cancers are in
the 60 to 70 percent range. Still, lung cancer screening with
low-dose CT scans is received by only approximately six percent of
screen-eligible adults in the U.S. annually. This means that 14.1
million Americans who should be getting screened every year for
lung cancer are not doing so. According to the 2021 USPSTF lung
cancer screening guidelines, individuals eligible for screening
include those 50 to 80 years of age, and who currently smoke or
have quit within the last 15 years and have a 20-pack year or more
smoking history. Detecting cancer early can improve outcomes. The
low rate of lung screening is an important reason why the disease's
five-year survival rate in the U.S. is only 23 percent.
About OSF HealthCare
OSF HealthCare is an integrated
health system founded by The Sisters of the Third Order of St.
Francis. Headquartered in Peoria,
Illinois, OSF HealthCare has 16 hospitals – 10 acute care,
five critical access, 1 transitional care - with 2,131 licensed
beds throughout Illinois and
Michigan. OSF employs nearly
24,000 Mission Partners across 150+ locations; has two colleges of
nursing; operates OSF Home Care Services, an extensive network of
home health and hospice services; owns Pointcore, Inc., comprised
of health care-related businesses; OSF HealthCare Foundation, the
philanthropic arm for the organization; and OSF Ventures, which
provides investment capital for promising health care innovation
startups. In 2020, OSF OnCall was established, a digital health
operating unit, including a hospital-at-home. OSF OnCall delivers
care and services when, where and how patients prefer to receive
them. OSF HealthCare has been recognized by Fortune as one
of the most innovative companies in the country. More at
osfhealthcare.org/.
About DELFI Diagnostics and FirstLook Lung
DELFI
Diagnostics is developing next-generation, blood-based tests that
are accurate, accessible, and deliver a new way to help detect
cancer. DELFI tests are built to solve the health issues of the
highest-burden population, including those in historically
underserved demographics, and have the potential to save lives on a
global scale. FirstLook Lung, for individuals eligible for lung
cancer screening, is our first laboratory-developed screening test
and requires a simple blood draw that can be incorporated with
routine blood work. The test is based on fragmentomics, the
discovery that cancer cells are more chaotic than normal cells and,
when they die, leave behind tell-tale patterns and characteristics
of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragments in the blood. The DELFI platform
applies advanced machine-learning technology to whole-genome
sequencing data to assess individuals' cfDNA fragments against
populations with and without cancer. FirstLook Lung uses these
millions of data points to reliably identify individuals who may
have cancer detected through low-dose CT, including early-stage
disease, with a negative predictive value of 99.8 percent. This
test has not been cleared or approved by the FDA. To learn more
about the FirstLook Lung test, visit www.delfidiagnostics.com
or www.firstlooktest.com.
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SOURCE DELFI Diagnostics