Biomarker Discovery and Validation in Lung Cancer (LCS)

• Discover and validate molecular biomarkers for lung cancer [ Time Frame: Participants are followed up very 6 months up to to 5 years or until death. ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  Investigate markers capable of prediciting response to chemotherapy. In cas a pulmonary nodule is diagnosed and has to be characterized, a biomarker could predict whether the nodule is or is not cancerous and thus, make CT Scan follow up unnecessary.
  
  

The primary objective of this study is to discover and validate molecular biomarkers for lung cancer.

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in industrialized countries. Most patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) present with advanced disease, and despite recent advances in multi-modality therapy, the overall 10-year survival rate is less than 10%. A significant minority of patients (25−30%) with NSCLC have stage I disease and receive surgical intervention alone. Although 35−50% of patients with stage I disease will relapse within 5 years, it is not currently possible to identify specific high-risk patients. In addition, for patients with metastatic disease, standard chemotherapeutic approaches result in less than 50% response rate, meaning that more than half of patients do not benefit and only suffer from side effects.

Only very limited data exists on markers capable of predicting response to chemotherapy.

This population would certainly also benefit from more of those markers. Another situation where a biomarker could be potentially very useful is the situation where a pulmonary nodule is diagnosed and has to be characterized. In this situation a biomarker could predict whether the nodule is or is not cancerous and thus, make CT Scan follow up unnecessary.