SUMMARY

The main focus of the Thoracic Tumors Group is to tackle various aspects of lung cancer, the most frequently diagnosed tumor to date. Our group concentrates on a number of areas ranging from disease prevention, early detection, more accurate techniques in diagnosis and staging to advancing precision medicine and treatment of lung cancer. We are also highly dedicated to our program which focuses on targeted therapies in patients with specific molecular alterations and immunotherapy strategies.

Main highlights this year are as follows: 500 new lung cancer patients including 20 cases of mesothelioma and 5 of thymoma, fostering close multidisciplinary collaboration through our established lung cancer tumors committee which convenes twice a week, the implementation of pharmacogenomic approaches in advanced NSCLC in collaboration with VHIO’s Cancer Genomics group as well as the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital Pathology Service (working with Javier Hernández and Irene Sansano), our involvement in exome sequencing in NSCLC patients, the analysis of PDL1 expression in mesothelioma patients, as well as our active participation in two New England Journal of Medicine papers published in 2014 including ALK positive patients (Shaw A.T. et al., N Engl J Med 2014, and, Solomon B.J. et al, N Engl J Med 2014). We have also organzied the 2014 European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC), 26 – 29 March, Geneva, Switzerland.

PUBLICATIONS