Previously Funded Research

Khinh Ranh Voong, MD, MPH

Johns Hopkins University

Research Project:

SPARC: Studying the Pathologic and Immunologic Response after Ablative Radiation in Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Summary:

Stereotactic ablative radiation (SABR) is a non-invasive treatment option for patients with early stage lung cancer where surgery is either not wanted or not possible.  An alarming 30-40% of early stage lung cancer patients treated with SABR may have their cancer come back in other areas of the body in their lifetime.  This is in part why lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States.  This study aims to clarify how ablative radiation may spark the body’s own immune system to better recognize and attack cancer cells.   This study will look at immune changes that happen within the treated cancer and in the blood after having received ablative radiation.  Next, it will see if killed pieces of cancer that are released after SABR may be seen by the immune cells found elsewhere in the blood.  Lastly, the study will test a new way to see the cancer treatment response using a special CT scan.   The study hopes to allow doctors to better understand the immune changes that happen after ablative radiation, so that better treatments that uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer may be given with ablative radiation to improve cancer kill.