Prof Shankar Siva has received a $1.5 million MRFF grant for Primary Radiotherapy in Metastatic Lung (PRIME-Lung), a phase III trial that will test whether the use of radiotherapy to eradicate the primary tumour in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reduces the subsequent spread of disease and synergises with standard-of-care chemo/immunotherapies to improve patient outcomes.
Prof Siva explained that there is an urgent need to improve lung cancer outcomes since outcomes are very poor once the cancer has spread. Over half of all patients are diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and for them survival is typically less than two years.
“We believe that when we eradicate the primary tumour with radiotherapy we also enhance the impact of drug treatments and prevent further spreading of cancer to other sites.
Radiotherapy to the primary tumour improves survival in other cancers but has not yet been tested in lung cancer. Several randomised clinical trials have demonstrated the benefit of an radiotherapy intervention to the primary tumour in the context of patients presenting with metastatic disease from other cancers. “Studies in other cancers have shown that non-invasive radiotherapy to the primary tumour, even when the cancer has spread to other areas, improves patient survival,” he said, “our project, called PRIME-Lung, will test for the first time if this strategy is effective in lung cancer too”.
Prof Siva emphasised that radiotherapy is already used in other lung cancer contexts and the expansion to this area is a simple yet innovative approach to address the unmet need that exists for patients with advanced NSCLC.
Current treatment strategies in advanced lung cancer rely on drug treatments, however, patients inevitably develop resistance to treatment, so we need to explore alternatives.
PRIME-Lung is designed in consultation with consumers to ensure acceptability and applicability to this area of unmet need. The study will build on an investigative team leveraging from 17 active sites and established data management and site coordination practices of the AURORA lung registry.
Prof Shankar Siva talks about PRIME Lung on an episode of Conversations in Lung Cancer Research.
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