Lung Cancer

Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a way of detecting circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream of pancreatic cancer and lung cancer patients. As tumors develop, they shed cells into the bloodstream. Although these circulating tumor cells are vastly outnumbered by millions of other blood cells, detecting them early can potentially improve treatment outcomes.

Capturing nanoscale ‘packages’ that cancer cells send out, twisting gold nanoparticles use light to distinguish healthy patients from lung cancer patients.

Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., was one of several Rogel researchers to present at the American Association for Cancer Research 2024 Annual Meeting.

A team at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center, in partnership with the statewide Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium, or MROQC, lung cancer collaborative, co-led by Shruti Jolly, M.D., and Peter Paximadis, M.D., of Spectrum Health Lakeland in St. Joseph, Michigan, found that raising awareness about the risk of radiation exposure to the heart and standardizing cardiac exposure limits reduced the average dose to the heart by 15% and reduced the number of patients receiving the highest heart doses by half without minimizing tumor treatment or increasing dosage to other at-risk organs in the chest.

A $7.6 million gift from Judith L. Tam and the Richard Tam Foundation has launched an accelerated research initiative here at the Rogel Cancer Center to understand why alterations in the ALK gene causes lung cancer to become resistant to standard therapy over time.