Roswell Park researchers to present findings at 55th ASCO Annual Meeting
- Lung cancer study aimed to find genes linked to longer disease-free intervals
- Team looked at whether tumor microenvironment can predict risk of recurrence
- Larger study could identify patients who would benefit from adjuvant therapy
CHICAGO — Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center physicians Grace Dy, MD, Chief of Thoracic Oncology, and Maya Khalil, MD, Chief Hematology-Oncology Fellow, led an effort to identify whether the tumor microenvironment can predict risk of disease recurrence in patients with non-metastatic lung adenocarcinoma. Dr. Khalil will present the team’s findings this week at the 55th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
“Higher immunogenicity in lung cancer has been linked to improved survival, and this also has been shown in other tumor types,” notes Dr. Khalil, first author on the work. “However, to our knowledge, this is the first study looking at this specific subtype of lung cancer — adenocarcinoma with the EGFR mutation — and this specific group of genes involved in the immune microenvironment in an attempt to find those linked to longer disease-free interval.”
The research team, which includes scientists from OmniSeq Inc., an advanced-molecular-diagnostics company formed to develop technologies originating from Roswell Park, sought to determine whether lung cancer patients’ tumor immune microenvironment can predict their cancer’s recurrence. Using a Cancer Genome Atlas database of 877 cases of lung adenocarcinoma, they conducted gene-expression analysis on 33 patients, finding a collection of eight genes that are prognostic for disease recurrence.
“We clustered the patients into two groups based on the degree of their tumors’ expression of these genes,” notes Dr. Dy, the study’s senior author. “The tumors with higher expression of these eight genes have a more ‘inflamed’ phenotype, with increased lymphocyte infiltration and less tumor proliferation. The group of patients with lower expression of these genes had a significantly earlier disease recurrence and lower disease specific survival.”
If this gene-expression profile data can be validated in larger cohorts of surgical patients with early-stage, mutation-driven lung cancer, it may allow the group to identify future high-risk patients who would benefit from adjuvant tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and spare low-risk patients the toxicity of additional systemic therapy, the study team notes. The group also hopes to expand their research to other lung cancer patients.
“We expect to apply a similar approach in interrogating the tumor immune microenvironment in other lung cancer subtypes,” Dr. Khalil adds.
ASCO 2019 Presentation Details
The tumor microenvironment in EGFR-driven loco-regional lung adenocarcinoma can predict higher risk of recurrence
Abstract 8521
Presenting author: Maya Khalil, MD, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
Time/date: Sunday, June 2 from 8 to 11 a.m. CDT
Location: Hall A
Session: Lung Cancer-Non-Small Cell Local-Regional/Small Cell/Other Thoracic Cancers poster session
Board: 277
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Annie Deck-Miller, Senior Media Relations Manager
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