Lung cancer, the deadliest but not the most researched: more than one and a half million patients die every year

Scientists from the biosanitary research institute of Granada have identified a protein responsible for the development and lung cancer growth. A finding that could help develop more effective treatments for squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, the most common in men.

Every year they are diagnosed in Spain about 30,000 new cases of this tumor. Five years ago, Inma Escriche was diagnosed with this carcinoma. So, he explains, “it was untreatable, inoperable and insurmountable,” and life expectancy barely reached four months.

However, today, thanks to an experimental treatment, he can tell his story. “I am having treatment every three weeks. Since 2017, every three weeks I have to go to the hospital for treatment, and without a break in five years“.

At that time, it was the first immunotherapy trial. A treatment, he explains, that has completely changed the horizon for cancer patients: “There is a radical change in the effects of when you are treated with chemo than when you are treated with immunotherapy alone, because immunotherapy does not attack your body as much, but teaches it to recognize which cells have mutated.”

Hence the importance of research. The latest discovery from the biosanitary research institute in Granada could help develop more effective treatments for certain types of lung cancer. According to the oncologist José Luis González Larie, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world: “It supposes 1,600,000 deaths to the year”.

Cintia Díaz-Miguel, another patient, could also treat his disease with one of those therapeutic targets. “I was lucky that I had a mutation for which there was a specific targeted therapy treatment,” he explains to laSexta.

From the Spanish Association of People Affected by Lung Cancer ask for more funding to continue research, since it is the first cancer in mortality, the second in incidence and the sixth in research.