Key result
The 10-protein MCaST detects imminent lung cancer risk with ~95% tissue-of-origin accuracy.
Why the study?
The study was conducted to validate a ten-protein marker blood test for assessing the risk of developing or harboring nine common cancers in a prospective lung cancer screening cohort.
Does the MCaST 10-protein blood test accurately predict the risk of developing nine common cancers in a lung cancer screening cohort?
Does the MCaST 10-protein blood test accurately predict the risk of developing nine common cancers in a lung cancer screening cohort?
The MCaST 10-protein blood test demonstrated high accuracy (94.6%) for tissue-of-origin signal and multi-cancer risk stratification in a smoker population.
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May improve multi-cancer risk stratification in lung screening; hypothesis-generating and should not yet change practice.
Purpose: We report a blinded validation study of a ten-protein marker blood test for assessing risk of developing or harboring nine common cancers in a prospective lung cancer screening cohort. Patients and Methods: The foundation of the multi-cancer risk stratification test (MCaST), test is a 4-marker protein panel consisting of ProSFTPB, CEA, CA125, and CYFRA-21 which has been extensively validated for risk of lung cancer and which has been expanded to include six additional markers to encompass, in addition to lung cancer, prostate, colorectal, breast, ovarian, pancreatic, liver, esophageal, and stomach cancers. Blinded validation samples consisted of 1,235 plasmas collected prior to diagnosis from 171 cancer cases and 526 randomly selected non-case controls. Fixed individualized combination rules as well as cancer-specific risk thresholds predefined based on established clinical guidelines were applied. Results: At the subject level, the MCaST tested positive for imminent risk of lung cancer in 65 of 73 lung cancer cases, including 45 of 51 early-stage cases, with a median time of 12.7 months (interquartile range [IQR]: 1.7 - 27.8 months) between the first positive MCaST and diagnosis of lung cancer. The positive rate of MCaST for other cancers was 88.9% for prostate, 63.6% for invasive breast, 85.7% for CRC, 50% for ovarian, 50% for pancreatic, and 67% for esophagus plus stomach cancers with a median (IQR) time of 20.7 months (10.2 - 42.8 months) from the first positive MCaST to a clinical diagnosis across the cancer types. Overall accuracy for tissue-of-origin (TOO) signal was 94.6%, and as high as 98.1% for lung cancer. Conclusion: MCaST has utility for assessing cancer risk for common and lethal solid cancers in this smoker population. Citation Format: Ehsan Irajizad, Johannes Fahrmann, Hamid Rudsari, Jody V. Vykoukal, Iakovos Toumazis, Sara Khoramisarvestani, Sara Ansari, Jane Yang, Nicole M. Kettner, Jennifer B. Dennison, Edwin Justin Ostrin, Samir M. Hanash. Validation of a blood test for multi-cancer risk stratification in a lung cancer screening cohort [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2026; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2026 Apr 17-22; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2026;86(7 Suppl):Abstract nr 1093.
Irajizad et al. (2026) studied this question. The 10-protein multi-cancer risk stratification test (MCaST) detected imminent lung cancer risk in 65 of 73 cases and achieved 94.6% overall accuracy for tissue-of-origin signals.
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