Recent Research Reveals...

Tool to monitor progress of lung cancer treatment looks promising.

Highlights One day, doctors may be able to "see" when treatment is working – without invasive surgery.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are testing a non-surgical technique that may help doctors monitor how well non-small cell lung cancer patients are responding to treatment. Using a device known as a CTC-chip to analyze circulating tumor cells from patients’ blood samples, the scientists were able to identify whether patients had genetic mutations that would make them less likely to respond to certain therapies.

The research, published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, is still in the early stages. However, if future studies confirm it works, the technique could offer lung cancer patients a non-invasive, safe way to monitor their disease and find out which treatments will work. Currently, in order to get that type of information, patients would have to undergo dangerous, invasive procedures to sample tissues and cells.

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