Scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, US have now developed a new, cheaper and faster method to detect certain types of lung cancer in patients with no history of smoking.

About 8-12% people who have never smoked a single cigarette suffer from lung adeno carcinoma. A protein called 'anaplastic lymphoma kinase' (ALK) is present in the tumor which grows in such patients. Such a tumor is most likely to be detected among younger people and is more aggressive than the other types of tumors. The disease progression is more than double the progression rate of ALK-negative lung cancer tumor.

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) can be used to detect lung cancer by testing antigens or proteins in the tumor. Study leader, Dr. Ping Yang said, "This discovery could make it easier for doctors to select the best courses of treatment for individual patients. Because it is already performed in most pathology labs, (IHC) testing can be done on-site versus sending a sample to another diagnostic testing site."