From Society Researchers The American Cancer Society employs a staff of full-time researchers who relentlessly pursue the answers that help us better understand lung cancer and all cancers. One of the main ways Society researchers study lung cancer is through long-term cancer prevention studies. The Society has conducted such studies since 1952. Our long-term follow-up studies have confi rmed the link between smoking and lung cancer, secondhand smoke and lung cancer, and radon exposure and lung cancer. Researchers in the Society’s Epidemiology Research program continue to make new discoveries related to lung cancer by analyzing data on an ongoing basis from Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS-II), which the Society began in 1982. Recent fi ndings include: • Women who smoke today have a much greater risk of death from lung cancer than female smokers 20 or 40 years ago, likely refl ecting changes in smoking behavior. Women smokers today smoke more like men than women in previous generations, beginning earlier in adolescence and, until recently, smoking more cigarettes per day. Those results are based on data from CPS-II and other contemporary US studies that have been analyzed by Society researchers and others, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. • About 177,000 lung cancer deaths in 2015 are expected to be caused by smoking, accounting for 80% of all lung cancer deaths. Those results are based on studies of CPS-II data, along with data from other contemporary US studies, and conducted in part by Society researchers. The Society has also begun a new multi-year cancer prevention study, CPS-3, which will yield more fi ndings about lung cancer in the future. In addition, Society researchers in other program areas are conducting different types of lung cancer studies, including monitoring the issue worldwide. Recent fi ndings include: • Lung cancer death rates are declining globally for young women, but increasing for older women. • Lindsey Torre, MSPH, the lead author on the study and director of surveillance information at the Society, analyzed lung cancer death rates among women across 65 countries from 2006 to 2011. She and her co-authors attribute this age divergence – as well as differences found across countries – to variations in smoking patterns. • Africa is poised to become the future epicenter of the tobacco epidemic, according to an analysis by researchers in the Society’s Economic and Health Policy Research program. The report warns that the number of adults in Africa who smoke could increase from 77 million today to 572 million by 2100 unless leaders take steps to curb current trends.
The American Cancer Society Collaboration with Stand Up To Cancer More than 35 of the top lung cancer researchers in the United States, dubbed the lung cancer Dream Team, are coming together to work on one of the most diffi cult-to-treat lung cancers – those that have a mutation in a gene called KRAS. The Dream Team is being funded by a $20 million grant from the Society and Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). The grant is a result of a collaboration that began in 2014 between the Society and SU2C, a charitable organization supporting cancer research initiatives. The Society is focusing on lung cancer for the fi rst project of this partnership, which has the potential to result in new livesaving lung cancer treatments. From Society Researchers The American Cancer Society employs a staff of full-time researchers who relentlessly pursue the answers that help us better understand lung cancer and all cancers. One of the main ways Society researchers study lung cancer is through long-term cancer prevention studies. The Society has conducted such studies since 1952. Our long-term follow-up studies have confi rmed the link between smoking and lung cancer, secondhand smoke and lung cancer, and radon exposure and lung cancer. Researchers in the Society’s Epidemiology Research program continue to make new discoveries related to lung cancer by analyzing data on an ongoing basis from Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS-II), which the Society began in 1982. Recent fi ndings include: • Women who smoke today have a much greater risk of death from lung cancer than female smokers 20 or 40 years ago, likely refl ecting changes in smoking behavior. Women smokers today smoke more like men than women in previous generations, beginning earlier in adolescence and, until recently, smoking more cigarettes per day. Those results are based on data from CPS-II and other contemporary US studies that have been analyzed by Society researchers and others, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. • About 177,000 lung cancer deaths in 2015 are expected to be caused by smoking, accounting for 80% of all lung cancer deaths. Those results are based on studies of CPS-II data, along with data from other contemporary US studies, and conducted in part by Society researchers. The Society has also begun a new multi-year cancer prevention study, CPS-3, which will yield more fi ndings about lung cancer in the future. In addition, Society researchers in other program areas are conducting different types of lung cancer studies, including monitoring the issue worldwide. Recent fi ndings include: • Lung cancer death rates are declining globally for young women, but increasing for older women. • Lindsey Torre, MSPH, the lead author on the study and director of surveillance information at the Society, analyzed lung cancer death rates among women across 65 countries from 2006 to 2011. She and her co-authors attribute this age divergence – as well as differences found across countries – to variations in smoking patterns. • Africa is poised to become the future epicenter of the tobacco epidemic, according to an analysis by researchers in the Society’s Economic and Health Policy Research program. The report warns that the number of adults in Africa who smoke could increase from 77 million today to 572 million by 2100 unless leaders take steps to curb current trends. ©2011, American Cancer Society, Inc. No.011482 Rev. 7/15 Society-funded Research and Training Grants in Lung Cancer The Society also supports an Extramural Grants program that funds individual investigators engaged in cancer research or training at medical schools, universities, research institutions, and hospitals throughout the US. Following rigorous and independent peer review, the most innovative research projects are selected for support. Spotlight on grantees: Following are some of the lung cancer investigators currently being funded by the Society who are working to fi nd the answers that will help save more lives and better prevent, treat, and manage lung cancer. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, as of August 1, 2015, the American Cancer Society is funding 97 grants with nearly $30 million for research to help save more lives from lung cancer. Prevention and Early Detection • Sanja Percac-Lima, MD, PhD, at Massachusetts General Hospital, is going to study whether bilingual community outreach workers can help increase lung cancer screening rates among older current and former smokers. Her work is focused on patients who use community health centers because studies show they are much more likely to smoke compared with people who get care from a private practice. Percac-Lima hopes her study will reveal a way to prevent the development of lung cancer screening disparities. • Mick Edmonds, PhD, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is researching what causes lung cancer cells to develop and progress. He is studying two molecules in particular, which he has shown in preliminary studies control lung tumor cell growth and movement. Edmonds hopes that gaining a better understanding of those and other similar molecules will lead to insights into how to diagnose lung cancer earlier and identify lung tumors that are likely to relapse. Treatment • Sam Cykert, MD, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is working on ways to increase the number of early-stage African American lung cancer patients who undergo surgery to have tumors removed. Patients who have surgery at an early stage have a much higher survival rate. However, studies show that African Americans are far less likely than whites to get this surgery. This may be part of the reason why the lung cancer mortality rate is higher among African Americans. Cykert is testing a multifaceted intervention to address barriers to lung cancer surgery that African Americans face. It will use computerized systems, quality improvement techniques, and a trained cancer communicator to help close the treatment gap between African American and white patients. • Alice Berger, PhD, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is working to discover more genetic mutations associated with lung cancer. She and her colleagues have already uncovered 4 new types of genetic mutations in the most common form of lung cancer, which can open the door to more and better treatment options for patients. • Curtis Chong, MD, PhD, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is testing more than 1,000 drugs to fi nd ones that could be used in lung cancer patients whose tumors have become resistant to current treatments. By drawing from the existing drug pool, Chong hopes to bypass the long and expensive road to new drug development – and get viable treatments to patients sooner. He is focused on lung cancer patients who have a mutation in a gene called EGFR because this form of lung cancer very often develops resistance to the drug currently used to treat it. • James P. Sullivan, PhD, at Massachusetts General Hospital, is researching how lung cancer spreads – or metastasizes – to other parts of the body. Sullivan has developed a mouse model that will allow him to study the way specifi c tumor cells involved in lung cancer metastasis work. He hopes the results will provide new insight into the fundamental processes that control lung metastasis and lead to new drug targets for patients. • Robert U. Svensson, PhD, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, is researching one of the genes that is most frequently mutated in lung cancer. This gene, LKB1, is a tumor suppressor gene. When working properly, it prevents cells from dividing uncontrollably and forming tumors. LKB1 mutations are associated with much more aggressive lung cancers, and LKB1 mutant tumors are resistant to most cancer drugs. Svensson hopes that by gaining a deeper understanding of how LKB1 prevents tumor growth, he and others might be able to combat the growth of LKB1 mutant lung cancers. • Cardinale Smith, MD, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is researching the lung cancer care needs and barriers to receiving palliative care specifi c to minority patients with advanced lung cancer and their caregivers. She notes that minority lung cancer patients often underutilize palliative care – which addresses the side effects of cancer treatment – likely resulting in increased suffering. Smith’s goal is for her fi ndings to help inform the development of a culturally appropriate palliative care intervention to help minority lung cancer patients.
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