Epidemiologic studies have suggested that African Americans have a higher risk of NSCLC and have poorer outcomes with treatment. Ethnic background and genetic make-up are linked, and consequently, may impact the likelihood of major responses to oral EGFR inhibiting drugs. For example, in large international lung cancer trials a higher percentage of East Asian NSCLC patients were found to carry drug-sensitizing mutations of the EGFR gene than Caucasians, and as predicted the highest rates of response to EGFR inhibitor drugs were found in the East Asian patients.

The recently published findings have led the researchers to initiate a follow-up study. This multi-center effort will review the overall rates of response, or lack thereof, among African American patients with NSCLC treated at the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center with EGFR inhibitor drugs during the course of their illness.

"In the future, this may lead clinical cancer researchers to be able to take advantage of these findings for a 'smart-design approach' to clinical trials in lung cancer, with novel treatments and biomarkers employed among different patient populations or even individuals," says Stanton Gerson, MD, Director of the University Hospitals Ireland Cancer Center as well as the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Targeted treatments for patients based on a myriad of genetic and ethnic factors are the wave of the future and may lead the way to improved cure rates for our cancer patients."

Source: University Hospitals Case Medical Center