English
Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer of women in the USA and almost 60,000 women who died of lung cancer in 2024, more than any other cancer.
The progress of methods for the detection and treatment of lung cancer have improved this situation, but there is still a lot to do. Although 1 out of 4 deaths are caused by lung cancer, less than 1 of 10 Federal Research Subventions are granted for the financing of lung cancer.
“Lung cancer is an illness that has very bad clinical results, and unfortunately there is not much hope,” said Nan Sethakorn, Md, Ph.D., medical oncologist and affiliated professor at the Loyola Chicago University. There must be more education and awareness of the new treatments for lung cancer, ”he added.
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History of immunotherapy as treatment against lung cancer
Immunotherapy is a kind of cancer treatment that uses your body’s immune system to eliminate cancer cells and is useful for some people with lung cancer to live longer. According to Sethakorn, immunotherapy has played an important role in cancer treatment in recent years.
In the decades of the 1980s and nineties, the field of immunobiology was developed based on research that began several decades before suggesting that the immune system played an important role in the development of cancer. But Sethakorn said it only thought in the early years of the new millennium with which modern immunotherapies with which we are familiar with, such as Pmbrolizumab (Keytruda), were relevant.
Immunotherapies were approved for people who were treated with standard chemotherapy when the cancer of their cancer. The researchers observed successful clinical results using immunotherapy that the next step made people available as an initial treatment for lung cancer.
This was also successful and immunotherapy was used as a first treatment for lung cancer even in advanced stages and is now used to treat previous lung cancer stages.
“Reminding of the different groups that carried out these basic examinations of immunobiology gives me a great sense of humility,” said Sethakorn. “We have achieved astonishing results with the use of more effective medication like this immunotherapies, but that took a few decades.”
Lung cancer financing differences
Unfortunately, the five -year survival rate for lung cancer, the percentage of five years after receiving a cancer diagnosis, exceeds 1 out of 4 people (26.7%).
According to a study of 2024 of the JCO oncology Practice Magazine, “the examination of many cancer and high mortality rates was not properly financed”. Investigations against lung cancer received subsidies of around 300 million US dollars from the National Institute of Health [Institutos nacionales de la salud] (Nih) in 2019. Although that may seem a lot, it is extremely expensive to carry out clinical research and studies. And to have an idea of what this amount of money represents: 300 million US dollars are less than half of the budget that finances the websites with prostate and breast cancer. Breast cancer, for example, causes 15% of cancer deaths, but receives more than 20% financed research.
The inequalities in the variety of participants in research are a problem with regard to the samples and the clinical results in relation to research in connection with lung cancer.
The pragmatic-lung essay [Pulmonar pragmático] The aim is to standardize the design of clinical studies as a result of the NIH and FDA efforts [Administración federal de medicamentos] In order to reduce the obstacles to participation in studies that make it easier for patients to register the registration, it is easier for researchers to carry out tests and increase the variety of participants. “The participation of groups that historically had little representation, such as black patients, women and Hispanics, agreed with the cancer rates of these groups,” said Sethakorn.
Patient rights are working on improving lung cancer research
Other options for reducing financing differences for lung research include the work of groups that defend the rights of patients. Defenders of patient rights, also known as a review of colleagues, talk about the advantages and concerns of studies and treatments. “Our work implies that the needs and opinions of our cancer -related groups give visibility,” said Christina Sisti, DPS, MPH, defender of the rights of cancer patients.
Sisti talks to other people in the community of cancer patients about clinical studies and how people can participate. “I found that the Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute have opportunities to defend research patients,” said Sisti. The first step to become a defender of the rights of research patients, be it to react the forms of their websites.
Find records and clinical studies related to lung cancer
Clinical studies enable early access to new promising therapies, which according to Sethakorn have not yet been approved by the FDA. “It is the way we, as a medical research community, understand how effective treatment can be and what side effects should be monitored.”
Records, a different kind of medical research, do not offer medical devices or new treatments. Instead, they focus on the characteristics and information from people who receive cancer diagnoses. For example, you can be useful to answer questions of lung cancer that have different consequences for men and women.
Ask your oncologists whether there are clinical studies in which you can participate. You can often tell you whether there are clinical studies that are looking for participants at that time. You can also search for clinicaltrials.gov. Organizations or patient rights defense groups such as the American Lung Association [Asociación estadounidense del pulmón] Or American society against cancer also have resources for people to find clinical studies.
This educational resource was created with the support of Daiichi Sankyo.
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