Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cells are missing a surface protein that triggers an immune response, allowing them to hide from one of the body’s key cancer defenses, a new study led by UT Southwestern researchers suggests. The findings, reported online today in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, could lead to new treatments for SCLC, which has no effective therapies.
Despite decades of study, SCLC – a subset of lung cancer that makes up about 13 percent of lung cancer diagnoses – has a very poor prognosis, with only about 6 percent of patients surviving five years after diagnosis. For the past 30 years, this disease has been treated with a combination of chemotherapies. Although most SCLC tumors initially respond to treatment, the majority of patients relapse within a year.
These tumors tend to carry many genetic mutations – often a good predictor of a strong immunotherapy response. However, says Esra Akbay, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at UTSW, immunotherapy drugs tend to not work well for SCLC patients, typically extending survival by just a few months.
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