News - Page 30 of 49 - Lung Cancer Research Foundation

By Karen V. | October 2021

It’s been just over 8 years since my life changed forever. Sharp pain in my back and shoulder prompted me to drive to the emergency room in the middle of a blizzard. My 12-year-old daughter came with me. I couldn’t figure out why the doctor kept asking me if I’d ever smoked (I haven’t).

Imagine my shock when I heard that I had a large tumor in my lung. I was 47 years old, had no family history, and I was a healthy person – I never, ever got sick. But the X-ray didn’t lie. I had surgery to remove my left upper lung and a bunch of lymph nodes, followed by chemotherapy.

I’ve had clear scans ever since…until this past February. Lower back pain sent me back to the doctor and the cancer was back. They took out a tumor and two of my ribs. With the help of my amazing doctors and my family, I am facing this latest challenge head-on.

Believe it or not, I have the same feeling about being diagnosed today with stage 4 lung cancer, as I did 8 years ago with stage 2. Because the amount of research that’s been done, I feel as confident now as I did then that I will see my way through this.

Eight years ago, they didn’t even know which mutation I had. Today, they do. I have one that affects only 3% of lung cancer patients, and there’s already two FDA-approved drugs for it.

I’m a big believer in not letting my cancer take over my life. I bike a hundred miles a week. I walk, I just started a French class, I’ve got a trip planned. None of this would be possible without the treatments I’ve had, and the treatments wouldn’t be possible without the research.

Everyone who hears a lung cancer diagnosis deserves to feel this hopeful!

Three functional subtypes of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) can guide the designing of personalized treatment for lung cancer patients, according to a new LCRF-funded study published in Cancer Cell.

Solid tumors like non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) contain at least three major cellular components: cancer cells, immune cells, and CAFs. The current personalized cancer treatment paradigm predominantly focuses on targeting the cancer cells (e.g., oncogene-specific inhibitors) and the immune context (e.g., immune checkpoint blockade) of a tumor. And it remains unclear whether CAF can be leveraged for designing more personalized treatment.

Major Findings

Researchers identify that cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) derived from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients are functionally heterogeneous.
These functional distinctions directly impact response to clinical anticancer treatment and associate with the tumor immune microenvironment.
Thus, CAFs functional heterogeneity defines a unique parameter for designing more personalized treatments.

Unlike cancer cells that are readily distinguishable based on genomic aberrations, the characterization of CAFs heterogeneity has been historically challenging. As a result, previous attempts to universally target and broadly deplete CAFs rarely improved patient outcomes in the clinic. “We need a new approach to characterize the CAFs. Importantly, we need to gain a comprehensive understanding of different CAFs’ biological function and their clinical significance,” says lead author Haichuan Hu, MD, PhD, an Instructor in Medicine at MGH Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School.

In the Cancer Cell paper, the researchers take a unique approach to derive CAFs from lung cancer biopsies tissues. They compile a large collection of such patient-derived models that constitutes a living biobank of CAFs. Of note, this CAF biobank encompasses a broad molecular spectrum of CAFs in clinical NSCLC. Therefore, the researchers can test the CAFs in the lab and compare their therapeutic impacts with the corresponding patients’ treatment responses in the clinic. By functionally interrogating CAFs heterogeneity using the same therapeutics received by patients, they identify three functional subtypes: (1) those robustly protective of cancers and highly expressing HGF and FGF7, (2) those moderately protective of cancers and highly expressing FGF7, and (3) those providing minimal protection and recruiting immune cells. Therefore, patients carrying the first two subtypes of CAFs may benefit from enhanced combinatory therapies targeting MET (HGF receptor) and FGFR (FGF receptor), and patients carrying the third subtype of CAFs may benefit further from immuno-oncology strategies.

The MGH researchers further demonstrate that these functional subtypes of lung CAFs associate with patients’ clinical outcomes to targeted therapies, and CAFs’ functional distinctions are governed by their intrinsic TGF-beta signaling pathway activities.

For the first time, the researchers show the functional landscape of the broad spectrum of CAFs in lung cancer. And the vast distinctions in CAFs’ therapeutic and clinical impacts make it critical to refining the mainstream anticancer treatments based on this unique parameter. Biologists often refer to cancer as an echo system that every cell matters during clinical management, Dr. Hu further notes, “with many ongoing endeavors like this one, I am optimistic that one day that a fully personalized lung cancer treatment plan can be developed by taking into account the specific feature of each cell in a patient’s tumor.”

This work is supported by grants from the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, NIH, Wellcome Trust, MGH Cancer Center, LUNGevity, National Human Genome Research Institute, and Guangzhou Health Care Collaborative Innovation Major Projects.

Other key contributing authors on this work include Zofia Piotrowska, MD, MHS; Aaron N. Hata, MD, PhD; Lecia V. Sequist, MD, MPH; Cyril H. Benes, PhD, Matthew J. Niederst, PhD, and Jeffrey A. Engelman, MD, PhD.

Hu et al., Three subtypes of lung cancer fibroblasts define distinct therapeutic paradigms, Cancer Cell (2021)

The 2nd virtual Free to Breathe Walk took place on October 2, 2021 – our biggest virtual event ever! Despite not being able to gather in person, the walk truly brought the lung cancer community together in a heartwarming and inspirational way.

Philadelphia 6abc’s Nydia Han and radio personality Jaymie Bowles emceed a fun, informative rally, before participants went off to walk in their own neighborhoods. Guests included Dr. Ibiayi Dagogo-Jack from Massachusetts General Hospital and lung cancer survivor Anne Laporte. Watch the recording below or on Facebook Live.

It’s not too late to donate!

Fourth study seeks 1,000 patients who are candidates for neoadjuvant therapy

NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ – The Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium (LCMC) kicks off its fourth study, facilitated by the Lung Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF), examining targeted drugs given as single agents and combinations as neoadjuvant therapies matched to specific genetic mutations. The screening trial, LCMC4 Evaluation of Actionable Drivers in EaRly Stage Lung Cancer (LEADER), is conducted through the LCMC and is a collaborative effort involving numerous academic study sites and pharmaceutical supporters.

Utilizing an umbrella trial design, the goal of the study is to screen for ten actionable driver mutations in 1,000 lung cancer patients who are candidates for neoadjuvant therapy (additional therapy before surgery.) The LEADER trial, together with matched industry-sponsored therapeutic trials, aims to develop data that will support oncologists in their targeted treatment planning for cancer patients prior to the patient undergoing surgical resection.

*Katerina Politi, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, LCRF Scientific Advisory Board Chair*

“Matching therapies to the oncogenic driver present in a lung tumor has improved outcomes for patients with advanced lung cancer. Understanding how this approach can be extended to patients with early-stage lung cancer has the potential to further transform how we treat this disease and have a positive impact on patients,” said Katerina Politi, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and chair of LCRF’s Scientific Advisory Board.

The LEADER trial will include participation from sites and investigators across the oncology community. In addition to Vanderbilt University, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, other prospective participating sites include Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Yale University, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Columbia University, NYU, Karmanos Cancer Center, University of Michigan, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ohio State, Virginia Cancer Specialists, Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, Moffitt Cancer Center, University of Miami, University of Missouri, Washington University, University of Colorado, Cedars-Sinai, St. Joseph Hospital Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment, City of Hope Cancer Center, UCLA, USC Norris Cancer Center, University of California-Davis, and University of Washington.

Early-stage lung cancer patients who are interested in participating in the LCMC LEADER trial should discuss the study with their oncologist to determine eligibility.

To learn more about LCRF and its grants program, visit LCRF.org/research.

To learn more about LCMC and the LEADER trial, visit LCRF.org/LCMC4.

A growing number of cancer patients are being spared chemotherapy – and its dreaded side effects – in favor of other options. A recent article in the New York Times investigated this development, featuring comments by patients and physicians including Dr. Roy Herbst, a Yale oncologist and member of LCRF’s Scientific Advisory Board.

When Dr. Roy Herbst of Yale started in oncology about 25 years ago, nearly every lung cancer patient with advanced disease got chemotherapy. With chemotherapy, he said, “patients would be sure to have one thing: side effects.” Yet despite treatment, most tumors continued to grow and spread. Less than half his patients would be alive a year later. The five-year survival rate was just 5 to 10 percent.
Those dismal statistics barely budged until 2010, when targeted therapies began to emerge. There are now nine such drugs for lung cancer patients, three of which were approved since May of this year. About a quarter of lung cancer patients can be treated with these drugs alone, and more than half who began treatment with a targeted drug five years ago are still alive. The five-year survival rate for patients with advanced lung cancer is now approaching 30 percent.
– New York Times, “Cancer Without Chemotherapy: ‘A Totally Different World’”

Read the full article here.

Dr. Antoinette Wozniak was our guest Sept. 22 for a #TogetherSeparately live talk, Lung Cancer 101. Watch the video below.

Register for our next livestream

New findings from the COAST trial led by researchers at Yale Cancer Center show that adding oleclumab or monalizumab to durvalumab improved progression-free survival for patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings were presented this month at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Chief of Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center and a member of LCRF’s Scientific Advisory Board, is lead author of the study.

Major Findings

Fourth study seeks 1,000 patients who are candidates for neoadjuvant therapy

FDA approves first targeted therapy for KRAS+ NSCLC

Rybrevant approved for NSCLC with EGFR Exon 20 insertion mutations

FDA grants fast track status for targeted treatment poziotinib

Research shows brigatinib provides improved health outcomes

Lorlatinib approved as targeted therapy for NSCLC

Two promising KRAS inhibitors soon to be FDA approved

FDA approves immunotherapy for NSCLC patients

FDA approves Cosela to reduce bone marrow suppression in SCLC patients

FDA approves Tepmetko for MET exon 14 NSCLC patients

Trial fails to show benefit to combining EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor and anti-VEGF agent

FDA grants priority review for lorlatinab as first line treatment for ALK+ NSCLC

FDA grants breakthrough therapy designation to new immunotherapy drug

FDA approves Tagrisso as first adjuvant therapy for earlier stage NSCLC with certain EGFR mutations

FDA grants sotorasib breakthrough therapy designation

FDA approves cobas EGFR mutation test v2

FDA grants priority review to Libtayo®

FDA approves diagnostic test for NTRK+

FDA grants expedited review for Tagrisso® in early-stage lung cancer

FDA approves drug for patients with NSCLC RET mutation

FDA grants priority review to tepotinib for NSCLC patients with MET

FDA approves first liquid biopsy with NGS technology for EGFR

FDA grants priority review to Libtayo^®

FDA grants expedited review for Tagrisso^® in early-stage lung cancer