Prevent before cure. A team of researchers from Nice was selected with 3 other experiments of lung cancer screening, on a national level. The code name of the project: Da Capo, which means “from the beginning”. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the Alpes-Maritimes.
A protocol which has received the green light from the High Health Authority and which combines blood testing, chest CT scan, and artificial intelligence. “We’re not there yet, but _it’s a real novelty”,enthuses Professor Charles Hugo Marquette, head of the pulmonology and oncology department at the University Hospital of Nice and head of this project. The objective: to detect the birth of a cancer through its “biological signature”_ in order to treat it as soon as possible.
Concretely, 2,600 patients will be followed in this program, which must still receive the green light from the Ethics Committee. This life-size study will last five years, before becoming, perhaps, the reference in terms of screening at the national level. The patients followed are smokers of at least one pack per day for 20 consecutive years.