London, Ont. researchers say new protein could identify deadly lung diseases sooner

According to researchers at Lawson Health Research Institute in London, Ont., a new diagnostic method could help identify one of the deadliest types of interstitial lung disease (ILD) sooner, allowing patients to receive faster treatment.

ILD is a term used to describe a large group of diseases that cause scarring in the lungs.

Specifically, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is one of the most serious and common types of ILD, mostly occurring in patients 60 and older.

The average survival time is estimated to be between three and five years.

Roughly 300 patients are being treated for IPF in London, and globally, it’s marked as the number one reason for lung transplants, according to a Lawson media release.

But in a new study published by Lawson researchers, experts found that testing for a specific protein, cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor protein (p16), found in biopsy tissue, could help to identify IPF sooner.

Marco Mura, an associate scientist at Lawson and respirologist at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) who led the study alongside LHSC pathologist Matthew Cecchini, said these tests could identify if a patient is in need of a lung transplant sooner.

“We developed a method that is actually quite inexpensive to increase the diagnostic accuracy of the biopsy and help to avoid unclassifiable cases,” Mura said. “The method has a prognostic (advanced indication) value, so it helps predict survival of these patients at the time of biopsy.”

Mura, also a professor of medicine at Western University, said the p16 protein is currently used in ovarian cancer diagnosis.

“We have no tests that we can apply to the (lung) biopsy other than the pathologist looking at it and saying, ‘OK, this biopsy shows this pattern,’” Mura said. “(But) this will be the first time that we implement such test biomarkers (proteins) in clinical practice.”

According to the media release, aside from the new protein testing, applying artificial intelligence could be used to further ILD and IPF diagnosis in the future.