12Th joint meeting of winter of the Spanish society for Pneumology and thoracic surgery

genetic fingerprint will be key in new treatments for lung cancer

-lung cancer accounting for 13.4% of new cases of cancer and that is why most frequent mortality cancer.

-En Spain die about 18,000 people a year by its cause, some 16,000 men and some 2,000 women.

-overall survival of lung cancer is 15% to 80% of breast cancer, 65% of colon cancer.

Zaragoza, January 2012.- Lung cancer will be one of the protagonists in the XII joint meeting of areas of the Spanish society for Pneumology and thoracic surgery, held on 10 and 11 February in Zaragoza. One of the highlights will be progress towards personalized therapy for lung cancer through genetic analysis of the samples and their impact on the prognosis and treatment, in a round table moderated by Rosa Cordovilla neumóloga.

Lung cancer is one of the most aggressive and causing a greater number of deaths followed by colon-rectal cancer. Globally, it is the first cause of death from cancer among men and among women even beating breast cancer. Spain diagnosed around a 20,000 cases per year and is the cause of the death of 8.3 per cent of Spaniards (1 in 12 men dies of a lung cancer in Spain) and 1.3% of women. In our country more die from lung cancer that cancers of breast, colon and prostate together, being overall survival of lung cancer at age 5 of just 15% of patients.

The response to this aggression by health professionals is in search of new strategies against cancer through personalised treatments ” for each patient according to their genetic characteristics. It’s identifying “genetic fingerprints” in cancer cells of the patients and propose a specific treatment based on genetic characteristics of the disease and its response to drug therapy, improve survival and minimize side effects, with the consequent improvement in the quality of life.

Generate in time and in detail, not only information on cancer, but on the factors influencing the response to treatment, will offer a treatment personalized to each patient in order to improve the prognosis and quality of life, at the same time, that reduce the ineffective therapies and costs arising from the same ” explains the DRA. Rosa Cordovilla.

To get to the personalized treatments, the first step is to understand the genetic changes that occur in tumor cells that depend on the tissue of origin, of the type of cancer and random. From this information, the second step is to design a specific drug for correct each of these failures that we find in the genome of cancer cell ” explains the DRA. Cordovilla. Finally, will have to search for clues to determine their sensitivity to different compounds, to choose the most effective in the DNA of the patient.

In recent years, made significant progress thanks to the significant improvements in techniques that can read the genes in the cells. Currently, (NSCLC) non-small cell lung cancer may be classified into different types based on genetic alterations of the tumor. For each of these types already specific customized therapies directed against these alterations can be administered.

So, there are two types of tumor genetic alterations and two types of specific oral treatments against them which have already been widely contrasted. Firstly, the mutation of the EGFR gene found in 16% of the Western population and more frequently in women patients, not smokers, Asian and adenocarcinoma of the lung. This mutation predicts response to a treatment called tyrosine kinase of EGFR inhibitor. Various studies have shown that in cell lung cancer patients not small and mutation of the EGFR gene in the tumor tissue, administering such treatment improves survival and keeps a good quality of life.

On the other hand, it has been found that you between 2-7% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer has another genetic alteration which consists a reordering and merging of two fragments of chromosome 2 (ALK and EML4). It is more common in male patients, young people, non-smoking and histology of adenocarcinoma. This type of patient is managing an oral drug that inhibits this genetic alteration and prolongs survival.

Both treatments are administered by mouth, are very specific and, therefore, are better tolerated that they have fewer side effects than the classical chemotherapy ” points the DRA. Cordovilla. These new custom strategies are getting improve survival and minimize side effects, with the consequent improvement in the quality of life of patients