Back to Fall 2008 / Winter 2009
As a young physician in training, Philippe Montgrain, MD, watched lung cancer patients suffer with little hope of recovery. He became committed to finding more effective treatments for lung cancer, the deadliest form of cancer.
The statistics are startling.Only 40 percent of those diagnosed with the disease are alive after one year, according to Dr. Montgrain, and only 15 percent are still alive after five years. Lung cancer kills more than 160,000 people in the U.S. every year – more than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined.
“There is little we can offer lung cancer patients in the way of effective therapies,” he says. “I am on a mission to improve the odds for people with lung cancer.”
He is studying a protein called parathyroid hormone-related protein, produced by about two-thirds of lung cancers.This protein slows tumor growth in mice and prolongs survival in humans. However, this survival benefit is only seen in women.
“More women who never smoked get lung cancer than men who never smoked,” he says.“Women who smoke are at higher risk for developing lung cancer than men who had smoked the same number of cigarettes.That said, women with lung cancer have better outcomes, live longer and respond better to certain therapies.”
It may be that gender dictates survival rates because male hormones seem to inhibit the production of this protein. Montgrain is trying to determine whether suppressing the male hormone testosterone increases the amount of this protein and slows tumor growth.
“I am hoping this study will lead to new therapies that can slow tumor growth and improve outcomes for our patients with this terrible disease,” he says.
Montgrain is one of 10 researchers funded by the American Lung Association of California in 2007-2008. He is a pulmonologist at the University of California, San Diego, and at the VA San Diego Healthcare System, where he also conducts his research.
“I treat patients with lung cancer, and that motivates me to continue my research,” he says. “We have to do more for these patients.”
For more information about the American Lung Association’s research program, go to: www.californialung.org/research
