# A panel of seven protein tumour markers for effective and affordable multi-cancer early detection by artificial intelligence: a large-scale and multicentre case-control study

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-oncoseek-eclinicalmedicine-2023/  
OnCo record `paper-oncoseek-eclinicalmedicine-2023` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

SeekIn's first OncoSeek study: an artificial intelligence model on seven routine protein tumour markers found about half of cancers while flagging about seven in a hundred people without cancer.

## Summary

Luan and colleagues analysed 7,565 participants (954 with cancer) from SeekIn and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital plus a Johns Hopkins validation cohort (1,005 with cancer, 812 without). Using one threshold per marker the seven markers had 56.9% specificity; the OncoSeek algorithm, combining the markers with age and sex, raised specificity to 92.9% (92.3 to 93.5) with overall sensitivity 51.7% (49.4 to 53.9). Sensitivities for nine common cancers ranged from 37.1% to 77.6% (pancreatic 77.6%), and tissue of origin was correct in 66.8% of true positives.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-10-29
- Journal: eClinicalMedicine
- Year: 2023
- DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.102041
- Authors: Luan Y, Zhong G, Li S, et al.
- Findings: Specificity 92.9%, sensitivity 51.7%.; Tissue of origin correct in 66.8% of true positives.
- What it means: Cheap and runs on hospital analysers, but at about 93% specificity a screening programme would generate many false alarms for each cancer found.
- Caveats: Retrospective case-control analysis of routine testing data.; Authors include SeekIn staff.

## Sources

- eClinicalMedicine 2023: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.102041
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37387788/

## Connected records

- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/)
- technologies: [Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)](https://onco.cc/technologies/mced/), [Proteomics & phosphoproteomics](https://onco.cc/technologies/proteomics/)
- drugs: [OncoSeek](https://onco.cc/drugs/oncoseek/)
- companies: [SeekIn](https://onco.cc/companies/seekin/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/paper-oncoseek-eclinicalmedicine-2023.json