Hope Foundation funding powers the SWOG trials that have changed how lung cancer is diagnosed and treated—bringing better outcomes to patients nationwide.
New PROSPECT-Lung Trial Launches to Advance NSCLC Treatment Options
A major new clinical trial called PROSPECT-Lung has officially opened, and it’s tackling one of the most pressing unanswered questions in lung cancer treatment: when during a patient’s care should immunotherapy be given?
The trial focuses on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for the large majority of all lung cancer diagnoses. Specifically, it enrolls patients whose cancer is operable, meaning surgery is still an option, at stages IIA through IIIB.
What the trial is testing:
Doctors already know that combining immunotherapy drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors with standard chemotherapy can improve survival in some lung cancer patients. But it’s still unclear whether it’s better to give immunotherapy before surgery, after surgery, or both before and after. PROSPECT-Lung is designed to answer that question directly. Patients are randomly assigned to one of two approaches:
- Perioperative therapy: immunotherapy and chemotherapy given both before and after surgery
- Adjuvant therapy: immunotherapy and chemotherapy given only after surgery
Why it matters:
Even when lung cancer is caught early enough for surgery, it often comes back. Finding the optimal timing for immunotherapy could meaningfully improve the chances that patients stay cancer-free long-term.
PROSPECT-Lung is co-led by SWOG and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, and funded by the NCI.
