Phoenix Firefighters Get Free Lung-Cancer Testing

Arizona Public Service Co. has donated a $50,000 grant to the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona that will enable 100 Phoenix firefighters to receive VisionGate Inc.’s test to detect lung cancer at an early stage.

Firefighters are susceptible to lung cancer because of smoke inhalation.

VisionGate’s LuCED test tracks lung cancer at the cellular level using a special microscope that can show cancer cells in 3-D.

VisionGate’s lung cancer test recently underwent a blinded clinical study that demonstrates 92 percent sensitivity to lung cancer and 98 percent specificity.

Before your eyes start glazing over when you read the words “sensitivity” and “specificity,” just know that the flipside of sensitivity is a false-negative rate, which means the test has a 92 percent chance of finding lung cancer at an early stage, compared with 60 percent with low-dose CT scans that were approved for use by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services earlier this year, said Alan Nelson, founder of Phoenix-based VisionGate.