A North West Cancer Research funded team at The University of Manchester, headed by Professor Caroline Dive, are investigating the disease progression of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) from diagnosis to post-chemotherapy in order to identify new treatment options.
Small cell lung cancer is a particularly aggressive form of lung cancer. SCLC tumours grow and divide quickly, leading to fast disease progression, which makes it harder to control. It also produces circulating tumour cells, which break away from the primary tumour and enter the bloodstream, increasing the risk of cancer spreading to other parts of the body.
At the start of treatment, the cancer cells respond well to chemotherapy and are vulnerable to the drugs used, with tumours reducing in size. However, the cancer almost always returns and the cells no longer respond to the same chemotherapy drugs. It is not currently understood why the cancer cells develop this resistance and is a major challenge in cancer treatment.
Professor Dive’s project seeks to uncover the ways SCLC becomes resistant to chemotherapy, as well as provide insight into determining which new treatments may work. The team has developed a unique panel of laboratory models derived from six patient tumour cells taken both before they received treatment, when their tumour responded to chemotherapy, and again after the tumour became drug-resistant. Using a variety of tumour profiling techniques, the researchers are investigating the molecular differences between the two models in order to discover how SCLC evolves. The findings will be used to develop treatments that will either improve responses to initial chemotherapy, or that can be used after chemotherapy fails.
Professor Caroline Dive, said: “Overall cancer incidence in the North West exceeds the national average, and cancers of the lung, trachea and bronchus are 27% higher in the region than the rest of England. SCLC is associated with heavy smoking and links to high smoking rates in the region.
“The ultimate goal of this proposal is to identify how patients with SCLC develop resistance to standard chemotherapy. We seek to identify druggable targets against which agents can be either incorporated into first-line chemotherapy treatment or as second line treatment. For any targets for which therapeutics are currently available, we will seek to engage relevant pharma partners in collaboration toward bringing their assets to the clinical environment, with a particular interest in initiating early phase trials in ECMC North NHS Trusts.
“As part of the Lung Cancer Centre of Excellence, our lab is uniquely placed to tackle the challenge of improving early detection, diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, and our team collaborates with lung cancer clinicians across the North West to improve access to new drugs and find better ways to extend and optimise the quality of life in this patient population.”
