Patients own blood and tumors could help tackle lung cancer

New research investigates how blood samples from patients can be analyzed in order to understand the growth, evolution and potential signs of treatment resistance of lung cancer. This could help determine what therapies are suitable for specific patients.  Three different papers, all published in Nature Medicine and all of which are part of Cancer Research UK’s £14million TRACERx project, are hoping to discover why lung cancer cells develop resistance to current treatments.  The TRACERx study includes over 750 patients from 13 different UK hospitals and is researching blood samples taken from patients that contain lung cancer cells. Analyzing these samples could help determine how lung cancer spreads throughout the blood and how our immune systems respond...