Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent, with more than 20,000 new cases diagnosed each year in Spain. In 30% intervenes KRAS oncogene, which causes more aggressive tumor. It is also a type of lung cancer that does not has targeted therapies beyond the standard cisplatin.

A study led by researchers Mariano Barbacid and David Santamaia, from the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and which has also involved a team from ICO-IDIBELL formed by Alberto Villanueva and Ernest Nadal, has identified a possible new strategy for deal with these tumors.

The study, which was done in mouse models, is published in the journal Nature Medicine and shows how the combination of drugs dasatinib –inhibitor of DDR1- and demcizumab –an antibody that inhibits Notch pathway- specifically and effectively reduces tumors and improves prognosis and survival. Completed preclinical studies, the next step is to do clinical trials to validate the combination of these drugs for the treatment of lung adenocarcinomas.

The study’s authors used preclinical models of genetically modified mouse. They have also been studied in orthoxenografts® of lung cancer orthotopic models that are generated by the implementation of human tumors in the mouse lung, generated by the team lead by Alberto Villanueva at ICO-IDIBELL / Xenopat S.L. These, the most advanced models on lung cancer, allow us to study the effectiveness of the drugs directly on human specimens.