Patrick Forde, MD, has a lot of experience running clinical trials. At any given time, he is running five to ten active clinical trials for patients with lung cancer at Johns Hopkins University. These trials span the full spectrum from early-stage to metastatic lung cancer. The majority of the trials he runs involve the use of immunotherapy drugs—drugs that leverage our natural immune system to combat disease.
After completing his training in oncology, Dr. Forde homed in on an idea that he wanted to explore.
Typically, the first treatment for patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is surgery. However, even after removal of a tumor, NSCLC patients have a high risk of relapse. Chemotherapy is sometimes used before or after surgery to reduce the risk of the cancer returning, but its benefits are generally modest.
Dr. Forde was determined to find a better way to prevent recurrence. Immunotherapy drugs were showing good results in the treatment of late-stage lung cancer. He wondered what would happen if one of those therapies were given to patients in the early stages of lung cancer. Could an immunotherapy drug be used before surgery to reduce the risk of relapse?
Dr. Forde didn’t know the answer, but he was eager to find out. He joined forces with a team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to launch a clinical trial testing the feasibility of using an immunotherapy drug before lung cancer surgery. When he presented this innovative plan to nonprofit funding organizations, they were as eager as he to proceed.
“No one had ever studied this type of immunotherapy in early-stage lung cancer,” noted Dr. Forde. His team was awarded a 2014 Career Development research grant from LUNGevity and a Stand Up to Cancer research grant to conduct the clinical trial.
The results have been exciting. Dr. Forde’s initial clinical trial only had 20 patients in it, but its findings are changing the way scientists think about immunotherapy in early-stage lung cancer. Not only was the treatment safe and well tolerated by the patients, but in some cases the tumors shrank significantly. In several instances, the patients’ natural defenses were amped up and aggressively attacked the tumor cells.
This groundbreaking clinical trial has opened a whole new avenue of using immunotherapies to treat early-stage lung cancer. In fact, when the results of this trial were first presented at the Annual European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Meeting in October 2016, they took the oncology community by storm. Other scientists are now also starting to look at this class of drugs for treating early-stage lung cancer.
Dr. Forde’s work is continuing with a larger clinical trial that will study the effects of the immunotherapy drug when given for longer treatments and when administered in combination with other medications. Dr. Forde began enrolling patients in January.
“It’s still early days,” said Dr. Forde, “Our initial clinical trial is leading to more later-phase clinical trials. And we are starting to consider immunotherapy to be a possible early-stage treatment. It is my sincerest hope that this work will ultimately improve outcomes for patients with early-stage lung cancer.”
About the LUNGevity Career Development Award Program:
In its sixth year, the LUNGevity CDA Program funds the brightest young researchers who are conducting translational research in the early detection and treatment of lung cancer. We have presented 17 awards to date. Our Career Development Awardees have already made significant contributions to the field and are establishing themselves as independent researchers. Get more information about these projects.
Juhi Kunde, MA, is a science writer for LUNGevity. 