Personalizing treatments for lung cancer

One of the most important things to remember about lung cancer statistics, according to Lungcancer.org, is that no individual is fully represented by numbers or group generalizations. Therefore, every patient is encouraged to keep in mind that his or her particular struggles or triumphs are never pre-determined.

That's why researchers at the University of Colorado Cancer Center are excited about a new $3.5 million grant to screen 2,000 lung cancer patients, in an effort to better understand how the disease affects different individuals.

Fred Hirsh, lead researcher for the team involved in this grant and professor of medical oncology at the UC Denver School of Medicine, said the importance of this grant is that it provides hope to patients.

"Instead of using one-size-fits-all," he said, "we are moving toward individual therapy or personalized medicine and therapies." Hirsh said that his group has worked for years to "identify patients with lung cancer who would benefit from epidermal growth factor receptor screenings."

Of course, Hirsh and his team will not know how effective the screenings will be until they are able to conduct the trials. "We know these drugs are effective in treating lung cancer," he said, "but we're not sure exactly which patients will benefit."

The epidermal growth factor receptor is a cancer biomarker that sometimes accompanies cancerous tumors. Developing an epidermal growth factor receptor antibody is one way to help patients have more positive outcomes during already practiced therapies, and a way to develop new therapies, according to Hirsch.

Wilbur Franklin, professor of pathology, said the trial would be used to collect samples from lung cancer patients who may be eligible for the antibody treatments.

The research team and Hirsh are "very excited" about the anticipated positive outcomes of the trial.

"Lung cancer is a huge health problem," Hirsh said. "Unfortunately, 216,000 patients per year are diagnosed with lung cancer, and the prognosis is very poor."

Franklin said that lung cancer treatments before 2004 were "largely empirical" and that the mortality rate for the disease did not improve from the 1960s to 2004.

Hirsh said he believed the future of lung cancer therapy could be found in the type of research his team is taking part in.

"Based on new knowledge in tumor biology and developments of new molecular techniques, it is today possible to correct lung cancer much better than before," he said. "New drugs are developed to target specific important pathways."

These "specific pathways" differ from person to person. The grant funds research that will help researchers figure out how, so the medical community can better treat patients according to their individual needs.

"A patient would be at death's door one day, and then up playing tennis the next," he said. Franklin said that this grant would cover research for antibodies for one type of tumor, and "more of these grants" are needed "to cover other types of tumors."