New option for post-surgical treatment of lung cancer patients – lung cancer vaccine therapy

  Lung cancer is currently a huge medical challenge, with approximately 1.3 million deaths due to lung cancer worldwide each year, and the incidence rate in China is increasing year by year. Histologically, lung cancer is mainly divided into non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), of which NSCLC accounts for about 80%. In terms of incidence, about 70% of NSCLC patients are found to have advanced stage, and 30-40% of patients have early to mid-stage. For early to mid-stage NSCLC patients, the current standard of care is surgery and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, however, more than half of post-surgical lung cancer patients will still have recurrence after chemotherapy, and chemotherapy is often accompanied by various adverse effects that patients cannot tolerate. Therefore, we need to develop new therapies based on current treatments to prevent recurrence of the disease and prolong the survival of patients or even cure them.   Tumor immunotherapy is one of the new therapeutic approaches, which aims at regulating the autoimmune system to fight against tumor cells. Therapeutic tumor vaccines are a type of tumor immunotherapy that works in a similar way to the immunotherapy we use to fight infections, by stimulating our immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells. However, the human immune system is quite complex, and a large number of tumor vaccines have not met our expectations. These experiences also suggest that tumor vaccines may only be effective in certain populations and that it is important to select the right population and target, and that the new FDA-approved drug PROVENGE also confirms the effectiveness of tumor vaccines.  ASCI (Antigen Specific Cancer Immunotherapy) is a new type of immunotherapy being developed *** that targets tumor-specific antigens and destroys the tumor cells that express them. ASCI uses our own immune system to attack tumors by educating the body’s immune system to recognize and attack tumor cells that express specific tumor antigens. Because ASCI targets only tumor-specific antigens and does not adversely affect normal cells, it has fewer side effects than previous conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, and no adverse events common to chemotherapy such as bone marrow suppression are seen. ***The first tumor-specific antigen selected was MAGE-A3, which is expressed in a variety of tumors including melanoma, lung cancer and bladder cancer. In lung cancer patients expressing the MAGE-A3 antigen, this novel treatment has no significant adverse effects, has a clear tumor cell-specific target, and has been shown in phase II clinical studies to significantly prolong the time to tumor recurrence.  *** MAGRIT, an international multicenter phase III clinical study of “recMAGE-A3 + AS15 antigen-specific tumor immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for resectable MAGE-A3-positive non-small cell lung cancer,” is being conducted at more than 400 centers worldwide with the aim of clarifying the role of recMAGE-A3 + AS15 antigen-specific tumor immunotherapy. A3 + AS15 antigen-specific tumor immunotherapy in the postoperative adjuvant treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) of the State Ministry of Health, the study is currently being conducted at several oncology centers in China, including Nanjing Bayi Hospital, Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, West China Hospital, Jilin Provincial Cancer Hospital, 301 Hospital, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, and more than a dozen other hospitals.  If you or a loved one with non-small cell early to mid-stage lung cancer who has undergone or will undergo surgery and/or related adjuvant therapy and are interested in participating in the above study and meet the general criteria below, please contact me to inquire about the possible clinical benefits of participating in the study and any other relevant matters. The study has completed patient enrollment screening and has entered the patient treatment and follow-up phase.  Primary criteria: 1. Post-operative pathologically confirmed stage IB, II or IIIA non-small cell lung cancer patients.  2. Complete surgical resection of the tumor.  3. Positive MAGE-A3 test (initial screening criteria met after contacting me and sending specimens for testing).  4. Possible enrollment with or without post-operative chemotherapy (timing is important: 4-12 weeks post-operative for non-chemotherapy patients and 3-6 weeks after completion of chemotherapy for post-operative chemotherapy patients).