Description: WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental lung cancer screening test designed to look for precancerous genetic damage could help better identify patients at risk for the disease, while opening up the possibility for earlier diagnoses and preventive treatments, a new study suggests.

The procedure enabled the researchers to screen people for evidence of chromosomal abnormalities in the lungs that are found among virtually all lung cancer patients. More than 80 percent of patients who did not yet have lung cancer -- but whose smoking placed them at high-risk -- were found to have such disease biomarkers.

"We were able to see precancerous genetic changes in the bronchial cells lining the airways of the lungs in both high-risk smokers and in patients who have lung cancer in another part of the lung," said lead author Dr. Wilbur A. Franklin, a professor of pathology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Reporting in the September issue of the American Jo