Towards better therapy for resectable lung cancer: Metabolomics predict therapy response (R-8585)

Introduction: Precision medicine relies on validated biomarkers that can accurately classify patients by their probable disease risk, prognosis and/or response to treatment. Metabolomics is particularly promising for biomarker development because altered metabolism is considered a hallmark of cancer. The measurement of the metabolomic plasma profile is cheap (+-50 EUR) and fast (+-17 min), with a high information throughput on a per sample base. Rationale: Complete resection is the mainstay of treatment for resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, rates of recurrence of disease are high, with five-year survival rates ranging between 73% (stage IA) and 24% (stage IIIA). Therefore, a predictive biological marker that stratifies between NSCLC patients whom surgery cures, versus patients with early disease relapse after surgery, is eagerly awaited. Study objective: The primary study hypothesis is that the metabolic plasma profile is a predictive marker of early disease progression after complete surgical resection in patients with pathological stages I to IIIA NSCLC. The secondary study hypothesis is that the level of dissimilarity between the metabolic profile before surgery and the metabolic profile after surgery, is a predictor for disease recurrence (in which the extreme case would be, that a normalisation of the metabolic profile to the profile of a healthy person, is indicative of a good prognosis).

Keywords:lung cancer, therapy response

Disciplines:Immunology