[NEWS] The first hope in 30 years for the most aggressive lung cancer

[YaKuZa--BoSs]

After almost three decades without any approved drug for treatment, a study has just shed light on small cell lung cancer (CPM), a rare but very aggressive tumor with a poor prognosis.

 

 

If talking about lung tumor (the leading cause of cancer death worldwide) are already "big words", when it comes to a specific type of this disease, small cell lung cancer (CPM), we are undoubtedly before what could be considered the most extreme version of this pathology, which for many years has brought specialists down the path of impotence, above all due to the therapeutic aridity they have had to face.

And it is as explained by Pilar López Criado, head of the Section of Lung Tumors, Head and Neck and Melanoma of MD Anderson Cancer Center Madrid, "not all lung cancers are the same. In fact, it can be said that it is not treated of a single disease but of more than 20 different subtypes or diseases. This evidence has allowed us to know the different manifestations and better define each tumor, which in turn has opened the way to provide the best treatment in each case. From the point of view of patients, knowing that their tumor has a 'last name' helps them demystify the disease. We are at a time when the general approach to lung cancer is no longer valid, we have to go one step further. "
This diversity of presentation referred to by López Criado is grouped around two main types of lung cancer: the most frequent (it represents 85% of all cases), which is non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) or large cell, and microcytic (CPM), also called small cell tumor, which, despite its low frequency (about 15% of cases) is not only a challenge but also an unmet medical need, due its biological peculiarities and the way in which the disease occurs.

This tumor causes around 3,000 deaths a year in Spain, 40,000 in Europe and 150,000 in the United States. It is a type of cancer of neuroendocrine origin, the main characteristic of which is the great speed with which it progresses and evolves. "Biologically it is an aggressive tumor, since it accumulates a large number of genetic alterations, with a greater tumor burden and an adverse prognosis. It is diagnosed in advanced stages in two thirds of patients," explains Dolores Isla, head of the Oncology service. Physician at the Hospital Clinico Universitario Lozano Blesa, Zaragoza.

Specifically, at the time of diagnosis, 30% of patients are in what is called the limited stage (the tumor is located on one side of the thorax, affecting a region of the lung and adjacent lymph nodes), and 70 Remaining% have an extended stage (the disease has spread throughout the lung and spread to regions of the chest or other areas of the body).

TOBACCO AND STIGMA
According to Pilar López Criado, the main risk factor involved in the development of this tumor is tobacco. In fact, 98% of patients are smokers and, as in the rest of lung cancers, a clear increase in cases is being observed among the female po[CENSORED]tion, which for Dr. López Criado is proportional to the higher female consumption of this substance, "a circumstance to which, beyond the social component that this habit has, other factors join. One of them is the weight loss associated with tobacco use, since many women confess that they smoke to avoid eating more. (a factor that, on the other hand, makes it difficult to stop using it.) In addition, tobacco reduces the taste of food, a 'side effect' that is also used as a strategy to reduce intake, "says López Criado. "On the other hand, tobacco produces alterations in the DNA that the body is trained to repair; however, it has been seen that the correction mechanisms of these alterations, in the case of women, are less effective than in men" , Add.

In relation to this close link between tobacco and lung cancer in general and CPM in particular, Ivana Sullivan, an oncologist at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, in Barcelona, emphasizes that early detection goes through precisely Addressing an unquestionable reality: that despite the fact that everyone knows the relationship between smoking and this tumor and the initiatives launched in this regard, the figures show how little success they have had. "The best policy to implement in this regard is primary prevention, fundamentally preventing adolescents from starting smoking, and for this, it is necessary to intervene directly and actively in educational centers. Likewise, it is necessary to promote the cessation of smoking in smokers through awareness programs, as well as providing them with the necessary tools to achieve it, something that is not easy in most cases. "