The CRIS Foundation against cancerreference entity in research against these diseases, conducts cutting-edge research against lung cancer, through the most advanced strategiessuch as immunotherapy, artificial intelligence -AI- and vaccinesto offer increasingly personalized therapies that increase the survival of patients suffering from this type of tumor.
lung cancer It is one of the most common tumors with almost 33,000 cases diagnosed in Spain this year, according to data from the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology -SEOM-. It is also cancer that causes the most deaths with 23,000 deaths per year.
Thanks to advances in research and data from various sources, survival of lung cancer patients may have increased more in the last 10 years than in the 4 decades from 1970 to 2010. If in 1973 only 10% of patients with these tumors they survived more than 5 years, and in 2010 this percentage was 19%, some studies estimate that currently almost 40% (37% in men and 41% in women) of patients survive more than 5 years after being diagnosed. Much of this increase is linked to immunotherapy.
Treatments for the present and the future
Dr Luis Paz-Ares, co-director of the CRIS immuno-oncology unit at 12 de Octubre University Hospital of Madrid and head of the oncology department of the same center, observed “important progress thanks to the application of immunotherapy, and we went from survival percentages in patients with metastatic tumors which were around 5%, to ranges which are currently moving between 10 and 30%.
Immunotherapy encompasses all treatments that, in one way or another, strengthen a patient’s immune response against their own tumor. This is achieved by waking up immune system cells manipulated by the tumor, helping the immune system find hidden tumor cells and instructing it to fight relapses. This has brought new hope to many patients with advanced lung cancer, which has spread throughout the body. However, there is still much research to be done in this area: Not all patients respond to these therapies and in many cases, it is difficult to predict which patients have the best chance of improving with immunotherapy. Additionally, there is still much to learn about how to combine these treatments with other types of treatments, such as radiotherapy or certain chemotherapies.
The CRIS Foundation Against Cancer carries out research projects in immunotherapy aimed at addressing current challenges, led by the best national and international researchers in the field of immunotherapy, in collaboration with the United Kingdom and France.
Among the most promising avenues is the use of AI to analyze imaging tests performed on patients and accurately and non-invasively predict which people will respond to these treatments.
Another area of research involves combining immunotherapy treatments with other treatments such as radiotherapy: The combination of these two strategies promotes a powerful response by the body against the tumor, while reducing side effects for the patient.
Finally, progress made during the pandemic has made it possible to design vaccines that protect against new appearances of tumors or relapses in patients who have already had lung cancer.
Immunotherapy and artificial intelligence
In the application of immunotherapy there still remain some challenges because not all patients respond to this type of therapy and in many cases it is difficult to predict which of them have more options for s improve with this treatment.
This is an area that CRIS Against Cancer addresses, promoting the work of experts like Dr. Raquel Pérez del Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Institute of Oncology which uses computer analysis and AI to predict how each person’s tumor will respond based on diagnostic images such as CT scans or MRIs combined with genetic studies.
Thanks to AI, this team has already developed several “fingerprints» of each tumor which makes it possible to predict its response to immunotherapy and to better choose the treatment.
Preventive vaccines for patients
Thanks to recent advances in genetic sequencing and the technological surge of the covid pandemic, we may be on the verge of creating vaccines that, in effect, prevent different types of tumorsespecially very aggressive forms.
The CRIS Cancer Foundation promotes a pioneering clinical trial to prevent relapses in lung cancer patients to be launched in early 2025, led by the doctor Sarah Blagden from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom with the Oxford Cancer and Cancer Research UK consortium.
Combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy
Immunotherapy has provided new tools for cancer treatments. One of its advantages is that it can not only function as a treatment, but we observe that it can multiply the effect of other therapies.
This is the case of radiotherapy, which could multiply its effects in association with certain types of immunotherapy. This is a very important discovery because would reduce immunotherapy doses to achieve the same effects, which would reduce side effects for patients.
