Targeted therapies are currently available for about one-third of people with lung adenocarcinoma, the most common kind of lung cancer. These drugs inhibit cancer cells by thwarting the molecular changes that drive them to grow while largely sparing healthy tissues. But for the other two-thirds of people with this type of cancer, there are fewer treatment options.
A team from Memorial Sloan Kettering is reporting new findings about a particularly aggressive subset of lung adenocarcinomas that are driven by two mutations that frequently occur together, in genes called KEAP1 and STK11. The molecular changes characteristic of these tumors were surprising to the investigators who discovered them: they block a type of cell death calledferroptosis. Cancers with these changes require this blockade to stay alive and grow. The study was published December 1, 2020, inCell Reports.
Ferroptosis is a type…
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