Innovations in medicine occur all the time. Some happen quickly, like the unprecedented speed with which theCOVID-19vaccines were developed. Others take more time to develop, as researchers leverage current knowledge and new ideas to develop novel pathways toward diagnoses, treatments, and survival for patients with a wide variety of diseases.
Each month, we dive deeply into lab reports, journals, and conferences to bring you the most highly anticipated innovations coming down the pike for one of the most dreaded diseases: cancer.
This month, in honor ofLung Cancer Awareness Month, our focus is onlung cancer. Among the new developments to keep an eye on:
A Drug That Works Against Breast Cancer May Help Fight Lung Cancer, Too
The tumors of some people withbreast cancerexpress a high level of the proteinHER-2, or there are HER-2 mutations that help the tumors grow and proliferate. The good news for people with breast cancer is that this protein can be targeted with the drugtrastuzumabderuxtecan (T-DXd). And the good news for those withlung canceris that HER-2 mutations have also been discovered in some people with lung cancer, especially those who are young, female, and nonsmokers.
In a small study presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Annual Meeting, andpublished on September 18 inThe New England Journal of Medicine,超过一半的与广告研究的参与者vanced HER-2-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) responded to T-DXd, 92 percent of whom also experienced tumor shrinkage.
Next StepTwo phase 2 studies are underway — one to evaluate a lower dose of T-DXd in lung cancer patients — and the other to evaluate its efficacy for targeting HER-2 mutations across othertypes of cancer.
RELATED:Lung Cancer's Newest Face: Women Who Have Never Smoked
A Heart Disease Drug May Also Be Repurposed Against Lung Cancer
Researchpresented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Endothelinon October 5suggests that the protein endothelin (which is secreted by the endothelial cells lining blood vessels, in order to make them narrow) may also be a target for treatingadenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer.
Until now, endothelin overexpression has mostly been linked to heart conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and vascular problems. But new research has also linked overexpression of a form of endothelin to lung cancer. When endothelin was blocked in a research setting, researchers found significant declines in cancer cell growth, a decrease in their ability to spread within the body, and improved programmed cell death, a process by which cells with excessive damage self-destruct. (Cancer cells often ignore signs to self-destruct.)
Next StepResearchers now want to learn if new or existing drugs that target the endothelin receptor will work on lung cancer.
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A Better Way to Predict Which Patients With Lung Cancer Will Respond to Checkpoint Inhibitors
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are a category of immunotherapy drugs that have been considered game changers forlung cancer treatment, as they can substantiallyincrease overall survival to 30 months or more.
But they come with a hitch: Only a fraction of patients actually respond to them. Predicting who will respond has been a work in progress. The most common way is to see whether patients carry a high level of a biomarker known as a PD-L1 protein. But it’s an imperfect tool.
Now researchers may have discovered a way to predict who will (or won’t) respond, by combining artificial intelligence (AI) and traditional precision medicine strategies, such as testing for the presence of biomarkers.
Leading the way is the OncoHost AI-based platform PROphet. In study findingspresented at last month’s European Society for Medical Oncology Virtual Conference,研究人员检查了血液样本for treatment response in 108 advanced NSCLC participants, 80 of whom responded to therapy.
Machine learning algorithms were used to delineate the groups, ultimately revealing that responders all produced changes in specific set of eight proteins (aka a protein signature) following immunotherapy, suggesting that patients producing these proteins would respond to ICI treatment, while those producing a different set might be resistant.
The hope is that platforms like PROphet can be leveraged in a clinical setting, allowing doctors to more accurately target treatment options (and potential beneficial outcomes) for patients with NSCLC.
Next StepResearchers hope to identify previously unanticipated targets for future therapeutic interventions for clinical trials.
RELATED:New Research Raises the Question: When Is the Best Time to Give Patients With Lung Cancer Immunotherapy?
