Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care cancer clinics in communities across Illinois and Wisconsin have joined a clinical trial that will evaluate a new investigational combination of two non-chemotherapy, anticancer drugs for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and the second most common cancer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Non-small cell lung cancer is the more common of the two main types of lung cancer and is often associated with a history of smoking,” said oncologist Jason Macklis, MD, Advocate Aurora Research Institute’s principal investigator for the study. “Depending on the person’s stage, it is typically treated with some combination of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy.”
This clinical trial aims to determine whether a non-chemotherapy regimen of ramucirumab plus pembrolizumab helps participants with non-small cell lung cancer live longer than people treated with the standard of care chemotherapy. Participants in the study must have recurrent non-small cell lung cancer, which means their cancer has come back or grown after receiving immunotherapy treatment.
Ramucirumab and pembrolizumab are types of immunotherapy drugs called monoclonal antibodies, which are designed to help the body’s immune system attack the cancer and prevent tumor cells from speading. Both drugs are approved for commercial use in the U.S., but not in combination to treat advanced lung cancer, which is why they are considered investigational for this study.
“Previous studies suggest the combination of ramucirumab and pembrolizumab could provide a strong treatment option to lung cancer patients who developed resistance to prior immunotherapy,” said Melissa Kadar, Director of the Research Institute’s Center of Excellence in Cancer Research. “A large, randomized clinical trial like this is the next step in the investigation of this combination immunotherapy.”
Researchers plan to enroll 700 participants in the study at sites throughout the country.
The Research Institute is participating in the study through its inclusion in the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), which brings cancer clinical trials to people in their own communities instead of only at major research institutions.
The study, “Ramucirumab plus pembrolizumab vs usual care for treatment of stage IV or recurrent non-small cell lung cancer following immunotherapy, pragmatica-lung study,” is managed by SWOG Cancer Research Network, a cooperative research group that designs and conducts clinical trials under the sponsorship of NCI.
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