A Study of Lung Cancer Screening in People With Unexplained Weight Loss

September 3, 2026 updated by: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Enrichment of Lung Cancer Screening Through Unexplained Weight Loss (UWL) to Stage Shift and Improve Survival

The researchers are doing this study to see if people with unexplained weight loss who have lung cancer screening are more likely to have or develop lung cancer than people without unexplained weight loss. The lung cancer screening will involve use of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT), a CT scan that gives off very low doses of radiation and can make detailed pictures of the lungs to help find tumors. The study researchers will also analyze participants' blood samples to determine if blood testing can be used to help to diagnose lung cancer.

Study Overview

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

409

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

  • Name: Amy Xu, MD, PhD
  • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
  • Email: xua@mskcc.org

Study Contact Backup

  • Name: Bernard Park, MD
  • Phone Number: 646-888-3346

Study Locations

    • New Jersey
      • Basking Ridge, New Jersey, United States, 07920
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering at Basking Ridge (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
      • Middletown, New Jersey, United States, 07748
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
      • Montvale, New Jersey, United States, 07645
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Bergen (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
    • New York
      • Commack, New York, United States, 11725
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Suffolk-Commack (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
      • East White Plains, New York, United States, 10604
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Westchester (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
      • New York, New York, United States, 10065
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863
      • The Bronx, New York, United States, 10467
        • Recruiting
        • Montefiore Health Systems (Montefiore Medical Center)
        • Contact:
          • Neel Chudgar, MD
          • Phone Number: (718) 920-8874
      • Uniondale, New York, United States, 11553
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Nassau (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Amy Xu, MD, PhD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-6863

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Potential research subjects will be identified at MSKCC largely through survivorship clinics.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Eligible for American Cancer Society lung cancer screening, as follows as per the discretion of the screening team:

    • Age 50-80 years old
    • At least 20-pack year history of smoking
  • Weight loss of 3-10%, defined as UWL, within any timeframe over the past in the 18 months prior to enrollment, that cannot be attributed to an underlying medical condition at the discretion of the enrolling investigator

    • Note that patients who have 3-10% weight may still be enrolled if the enrolling investigator does not conclude that the weight loss can be attributed to the patient's intentional efforts.
    • Documented weight loss can be self-reported or extracted from weights obtained during physician visits. However, if self-reported weight loss is contradicted by weight loss documented in the medical record (e.g. a patients states that (s)he lost 10 lbs in the past 6 months, but a weight documented in the medical record does not support that history), the measured and quantified weight change will be used to ascertain eligibility
  • Life expectancy greater than 1 year, per assessment of the treating clinician.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Currently pregnant or trying to become pregnant via self-report
  • Prior history of recent CT scan of the chest either through LDCT screening or with a scan of the chest (standard, not LDCT) performed within the past 12 months
  • Prior history of NSCLC

    ○ Note that patients with a history of diagnosis of non-lung cancers are eligible for the study.

  • Currently undergoing or referred for diagnostic evaluation due to clinical suspicion for malignancy (e.g., referred to a medical or surgical oncologist, or scheduled for biopsy on the basis of a suspicious imaging abnormality).
  • Patients with a germline pathogenic genetic variant who have undergone whole body MRI within the past 12 months
  • Unable to comply with study procedures

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Patients undergoing Lung cancer screening
All patients will undergo prospective LDCT imaging annually. At baseline and Year 1, patients will also undergo biospecimen collection for post-hoc ctDNA analysis.
at baseline and at Year 1.
at baseline and at Year 1.
at baseline and at 1 year after registration.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
The incidence of lung cancer in patients with unexplained weight loss
Time Frame: 2 years
Low Dose CT screening
2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Collaborators

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Amy Xu, MD, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 2, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 3, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 3, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

December 5, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 4, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 3, 2026

Last Verified

September 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center supports the international committee of medical journal editors (ICMJE) and the ethical obligation of responsible sharing of data from clinical trials. The protocol summary, a statistical summary, and informed consent form will be made available on clinicaltrials.gov when required as a condition of Federal awards, other agreements supporting the research and/or as otherwise required. Requests for deidentified individual participant data can be made beginning 12 months after publication and for up to 36 months post publication. Deidentified individual participant data reported in the manuscript will be shared under the terms of a Data Use Agreement and may only be used for approved proposals. Requests may be made to: crdatashare@mskcc.org.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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