by he Ruber International Hospital has incorporated into Doctor Antonio Calles as responsible for the Lung Cancer Unitintegrated into the Service Medical Oncology of the Madrid hospital center. «Our main objective is to ensure that patients receive the best and most innovative treatment for their disease. “We are committed to research, technological and therapeutic advances to be able to address lung cancer with cutting-edge and precision medicine, and ensure that patients fall into the hands of the best professionals,” he emphasizes.
As the specialist assures, the tobacco consumption is the main risk factor for developing lung cancer, but not the only one, “so we must flee from the stigma that smoking produces in people who suffer from lung cancer.” In that sense, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are other factors determinants, such as the inhalation of domestic radon in homes – a radioactive gas of natural origin that can be found in high concentrations in indoor spaces -, breathing environmental pollution or occupational exposure to certain substances while working. Therefore, “in the end, any person, by virtue of having lungs, may be at risk of suffering from lung cancer,” says the oncologist.
However, Dr. Calles maintains that the biology of lung cancer in patients is different from that of non-smokers: “We have more and more non-smoking patients and it is very common for actionable mutations to appear, which we can treat with targeted drugs,” he explains. Therefore, he assures that it is essential to have a complete and exhaustive molecular diagnosis to ensure that specialists can treat patients with targeted therapies.
On the contrary, the oncologist states not only that smoking patients tend to respond better to immunotherapy, but, in their case, the presence of actionable mutations is less frequent. Even so, he emphasizes, a molecular study «to understand what is the best way to offer this immunotherapy, that is, if it has to be offered alone, in combination with chemotherapy… We are already offering it even before surgery or after radical treatment, such as chemo and radiotherapy, “to obtain the best results and thus increase the chances of cure.”
Regarding the type of patient they see in consultation, Dr. Antonio Calles assures that they are people “of all ages and conditions, although the average age is 65 years, but we also have patients of 27 and 90 years.” The important thing, he emphasizes, is that each disease has a specific treatment: “For patients in whom the disease is diagnosed in an advanced stage, which continue to be the most frequent, the objective is to ensure, with a molecular diagnosis, that they will receive the best targeted and personalized therapy, which is what impacts survival,” he explains.
Regarding patients who do not have actionable mutationsThe objective is that they can receive treatments based on immunotherapy, which, according to Dr. Calles, “is the basis of treatment to increase survival and achieve the best results in metastatic disease and, for that, a complete molecular study must be done.” If the diagnosis occurs at a more locally advanced stage, it ensures that the unit has the best specialists, thoracic surgeons, radiation oncology, pulmonology, to provide multidisciplinary treatment and be able to offer the patient the best curative treatment options in that scenario.
Furthermore, the expert assures that the Lung Cancer Unit of the Ruber International Hospital is at Vanguard of targeted therapies and immunotherapy: “It is the tumor where there has been the most progress, in both aspects, with both therapies, and we are the ones who have been treating patients for the longest time with targeted therapies and immunotherapy, both in terms of seniority and volume of treatments.” patients.
The most important thing in lung cancer, he adds, is the multidisciplinary work, since the patient will need “a medical oncology team, radiation oncology, support therapy, thoracic surgery, etc., and the key is that we have all of this in the same place, that is, that they have good access to pulmonology, to radiodiagnosis, because, in the end, it is what those of us who are dedicated to lung cancer really depend on.” Therefore, he recognizes that it is necessary to have a “very strong team, with a lot of experience behind it, with a lot of treatment volume, which is what ensures the best results.”
PharmaMar’s antitumor
Another of the goals of the Lung Cancer Unit of the Ruber International Hospital is to attract clinical trials, offer patients the possibility of participating in trials with therapy treatments and novel drugs that may impact the course of their disease. In this sense, Dr. Antonio Calles has led and participated in a multicenter clinical trial of the combination of a novel chemotherapy, developed by the Spanish pharmaceutical company. FarmaMar, with immunotherapy for patients who have small cell lung cancer – characterized by its rapid growth and aggressiveness – and who have progressed with previous chemotherapy treatment. As he explains, “this is a very difficult scenario to treat, usually with a very poor prognosis and very few treatment options.”
Recently, in the European Congress of Medical OncologyDr. Calles and his team have demonstrated and communicated the data from the phase 2 clinical trial, where, as he states, approximately half of the patients responded to this treatment combination, “even patients with a long response or patients with a complete response, that is, with absolute disappearance of the disease, which validates the combination of chemo and immunotherapy also in small cell lung cancer, which is where we have had the least progress in recent decades and where the developments of combinations of chemo and immunotherapy for this disease.
In that sense, the oncologist assures that they are very proud, not only of having led this clinical trial at the national level, but of having had the opportunity to present it at a top-rated congress like the European one, where this year there was a record participation figure with more than 35,000 attendees.
