(We interrupt Part Two of our report, “Calling Dr. Google, ” in order to bring you some very interesting and timely news in lung cancer investigation. We will continue the Dr. Google story next week.)
Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists have long believed in personalized medicine. The more meticulous we can make a patient’s treatment plan, the better his or her chances become for a longer or richer life.
About Personalized Medicine
If you or a loved one has lung cancer, your F.L.A.S.S. team will treat you like family, with customized attention that won’t make you feel like a number. This philosophy of individualized treatment extends to each patient with compassionate care. We have always termed our practice here at F.L.A.S.S. “patient oriented and holistic.”
We are proud to know we are not the only healthcare givers who work and study to improve personalized medicine for each lung cancer patient. In fact, individualized, precision medicine has been increasingly studied, especially for lung cancer patients. It might surprise you that this study goes down to the microscopic level.
Recent Findings in Personalized Research
Recently, Eric B. Haura, M.D., director of Moffitt’s Lung Cancer Center of Excellence stated. “Precision medicine is the future of cancer care.” He and his team have been studying how to tailor specialized treatments based on genetic qualities of the lung cancer in each specific patient. Let’s take a look at the progress of his study:
1. His purpose is to “analyze mutated genes in lung adenocarcinoma to help better select personalized treatment options for patients.”
2. His study has centered around patients with Adenocarcinoma, the most typical type of lung cancer in the United States with approximately 130,000 people diagnosed each year.
3. He and his team investigated ten different highly mutated and altered genes. Named “oncogenic driver genes,” they contribute to cancer progression. His study of the differences in them and the treatments for them involved more than 1,000 lung cancer patients.
4. Because the “Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, in collaboration with the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, “have developed a process to analyze mutated genes in lung adenocarcinoma,” physicians will be able to help better select personalized treatment options for patients.
Patients suffering with adenocarcinoma “have a high probability of having mutated oncogenic driver genes in their tumors.”
5. The scientists created a process to analyze multiple genes at one time, using only small amounts of patient tissue.
They found that 64 percent of their lung adenocarcinoma patients had at least one oncogenic driver gene. You can read more detailed information in the paper,”Using Multiplexed Assays of Oncogenic Drivers in Lung Cancers to Select Targeted Drugs,” published in the Journal of American Medicine this summer.
6. The next step in the study meant that patients received therapy that was targeted and designed for their specific oncogenic, mutated driver.
7. The amazing outcome: Over the course of a four-year study, the scientists discovered “that those patients who had targeted treatment against an oncogenic driver gene survived longer than those patients who did not.”
Definitely encouraged by this study and its findings, Dr. Haura stated, “We’d like to extend this further to examine for oncogenic driver genes in other types of lung cancers, such as squamous cell lung cancer.”
About Balance
This study and others like it prove that the more individualized we can make our patient treatment plans, the better chance we give our patients for more days in their life and more life in their days.
Once again this story underlines the profound relationship between the world of medical research and the world of patient care.
Thank you for reading the F.L.A.S.S. blog, and we hope you will join us again for more news and information on the respiratory system.
