DECAMP-1: Diagnosis and Surveillance of Indeterminate Pulmonary Nodules

The Detection of Early lung Cancer Among Military Personnel (DECAMP) consortium is a multidisciplinary and translational research program that includes 7 Veterans Administration Hospitals (VAH), the 4 designated Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) and 4 academic hospitals as clinical study sites, several molecular biomarker laboratories, along with Biostatics, Bioinformatics, Pathology and Biorepository cores. The DECAMP Coordinating Center will facilitate rapid selection, design and execution of clinical studies within this multi-institutional consortium. The goal will be accomplished by recruiting 500 smokers with indeterminate pulmonary nodules (0.7cm - 3.0cm) on chest CT who will undergo fiberoptic bronchoscopy and will be followed for 2 years until a final diagnosis is made. The diagnostic performance of four previously established lung cancer biomarkers in this cohort will be validated; 1) a gene-expression biomarker measured in bronchial airway brushings; 2) a proteomic signatures measured in bronchial airway biopsies; 3) a proteomic signature measured in serum; and 4) a signature of serum cytokines. The added value of the molecular markers to clinical and imaging markers routinely used in the diagnostic work up of these patients and develop an integrated model (i.e. clinical, imaging \& molecular markers) that results in the most robust diagnostic predictor will be evaluated.