Research progress in the treatment of small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) accounts for approximately 10-15% of all lung cancers. No significant improvement has been made for patients with SCLC in the past several decades. The main progresses were the thoracic radiation and prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) that improved the patient survival rate. For patients with limited disease and good performance status (PS), concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) followed by PCI should be considered. For extensive disease, the combination of etoposide and platinum-based chemotherapy remains the standard treatment and consolidative thoracic radiotherapy is beneficial for patients who have a significant respond to initial chemotherapy. However, the prognosis still remains poor. Recently, efforts have been focused on molecular targets and immunotherapy. But numerous molecular targets methods have failed to show a significant clinical benefit in patients with SCLC. It is anticipated that further development of research will depend on the on-going trials for molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy which are promising and may improve the outcomes for SCLC in the next decade.

#2714, a novel active inhibitor with potent G2/M phase arrest and antitumor efficacy in preclinical models

“…Recently, research has indicated that chemotherapy causes poor effects on the survival rate of patients with advanced lung cancer, notwithstanding that it was used as the clinical first-line treatment strategies for patients with advanced lung cancers 20 . Therefore, it is fundamentally urgent to meet the current medical needs and find a more rational and effective treatment for block advanced lung cancers 21 , 22 . In this paper, we identified a candidate compound named as #2714, which could arrest the G2/M phase and induced apoptosis in murine Lewis lung cancer LL/2 cells both in vitro and in vivo.…”

“…There is a tightly regulated system that controls the eukaryotic cell proliferation process. The major regulatory checkpoint is the transition from the G2 to the M phase, and the reaction of this transition is catalyzed by Plk1 and p-Cdc25C 22 – 24 . Our data show that #2714 potently downregulated the expression levels and activity of p-Cdc25C, resulting in G2/M cell cycle arrest and inhibition of cell proliferation that occurred in a concentration-dependent manner in LL/2 cells.…”

Phase Ib/II study of the pan-cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor roniciclib in combination with chemotherapy in patients with extensive-disease small-cell lung cancer

“…The chemotherapy regimens in this study are commonly used and have been widely accepted for more than four decades [16][17][18], although median survival for patients with ED-SCLC remains low, with virtually every patient relapsing following response [14]. Thus far, the addition of thalidomide, bevacizumab, pemetrexed, and oblimersen to first-line chemotherapy treatment in patients with ED-SCLC has resulted in negative phase II and III studies [19].…”

3′-epi-12β-hydroxyfroside, a new cardenolide, induces cytoprotective autophagy via blocking the Hsp90/Akt/mTOR axis in lung cancer cells

“…There are more than 1.82 million people diagnosed with lung cancer annually, and over 1.59 million deaths each year 1 . Despite the increasing use of novel therapeutic strategies and anticancer agents for lung cancer treatment, their clinical efficacy remains unsatisfactory, with the high mortality and morbidity among lung cancer patients not improving as expected 2 - 4 . Thus, there is an urgent need for additional novel anticancer agents or more effective strategies.…”