Hoosier Cancer Research Network is pleased to announce the opening of a cancer clinical trial for patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer at select sites throughout the United States.

The study, known as LUN14-179, seeks to determine if the use of an investigational drug, Pembrolizumab, following standard chemoradiation treatment, improves the time to death or distant metastatic disease in patients with inoperable or unresectable stage IIIA or IIIB non-small cell lung cancer. The FDA has approved Pembrolizumab for the treatment of melanoma but it has not yet approved the drug to treat lung cancer.

[Photo: Nasser Hanna, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, is the sponsor investigator of LUN14-179.]

Pembrolizumab belongs to a new class of drugs called PD-1 inhibitors. The drug works by binding to the PD-1 (programmed cell death-1) receptor on the surface of T cells, preventing the interaction of PD-1 with its ligands.

Watch a video about this trial:

“The interaction of PD-1 and PD-L1 (programmed death-ligand 1) prevents the immune cell from attacking the cancer cell,” explains Nasser Hanna, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and sponsor investigator of the study. “The PD-1 inhibitors by themselves do not kill cancer, to the best of our knowledge. What they do is disarm the interaction between PD-1 and PD-L1 to allow the immune cell to kill the cancer cell.”

The study is open to men and women age 18 and older who have unresectable or inoperable stage IIIA or IIIB non-small cell lung cancer who have completed concurrent chemoradiation with a standard chemotherapy regimen (either cisplatin/etoposide or carboplatin/paclitaxel) and a dose of radiation ranging from 59.4-66Gy. Patients are considered unresectable or inoperable based on the judgment of their treating physician.

Patients whose disease has not progressed or remains stable after chemoradiation, and who meet all other eligibility requirements, may enroll in this trial 4-8 weeks after completing chemoradiation.

Patients will receive standard chemoradiation from their treating physicians. Once they have enrolled in this study, patients will travel to a participating site (see locations) to receive the study drug intravenously every three weeks.

See clinicaltrials.gov for more information about this trial, including full eligibility requirements.

About Hoosier Cancer Research Network:

Hoosier Cancer Research Network (formerly known as Hoosier Oncology Group) conducts innovative cancer research in collaboration with academic and community physicians and scientists across the United States. The organization provides comprehensive clinical trial management and support, from conception through publication. Created in 1984 as a program of the Walther Cancer Institute, Hoosier Cancer Research Network became an independent nonprofit clinical research organization in 2007. Since its founding, Hoosier Cancer Research Network has initiated more than 150 trials in a variety of cancer types and supportive care, resulting in more than 300 publications. More than 4,600 subjects have participated in Hoosier Cancer Research Network clinical trials.