Clinicopathological characteristics and prediction of prognosis and therapeutic efficacies in cancers with neuroendocrine differentiation

Abstract

This study aims to examine clinicopathological characteristics of neuroendocrine carcinoma, a cancer know to be aggressive, rare, and has no standard cares The study will contribute to establish new therapeutic approaches for such a recalcitrant disease.

Neuroendocrine differentiation has agnostically been found in a subset of tumors across various cancer types. Most popular cancer types among them is small cell lung cancer. However, neuroendocrine differentiation is also seen in other cancer types beyond lung cancer. Neuroendocrine carcinoma, including small cell lung cancer, has extremely poor prognosis, with median overall survival after diagnosis of approximately 1 year. Nevertheless, there is no established standard care for such aggressive disease due to its rarity. Recent emerging studies of small cell lung cancer suggest that the diverse of the levels of neuroendocrine differentiation associates with a different biological characteristics, which may eventually predict different therapeutic approaches. In this study, we propose to 1) comprehensively identify neuroendocrine differentiated carcinoma from various cancer types, 2) examine clinicopathological characteristics, clinical course, and therapeutic responses, 3) oncogenic characteristics, in neuroendocrine carcinoma originated from various organs. As this study will require multidiscipnary contributions from basic, clinical, pathological, and oncogenic areas, it is very important to collaborate with national centers.

Perspectives

• To establish clinicopathological evidences and therapeutic innovations for a rare and recalcitrant cancer
• To identify biomarkers to predict efficacies of different therapeutic approaches, which will eventually progress to investigator initiated clinical trials for patients with neuroendocrine carcinoma
• To examine oncogenomic characteristics of neuroendocrine carcinoma, which will contribute to identify novel therapeutic targets

Comments from principal researcher

I experienced establishing and running early clinical trials and translational researches for patients with neuroendocrine carcinoma and small cell lung cancer through my fellowship in National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA. Even in such an innovative institution, I had faced with a lot of opportunities I could not save neuroendocrine carcinoma patients' lives, suggesting how difficult to develop novel therapeutic approaches for such a recalcitrant disease. Base on such precious experiences, I want to proceed this study and contribute to improvement of patients' health, especially those with neuroendocrine cancer.

Shared Researchers

• Shota Kusuhara
  National Cancer Center Hospital East, Department of Medical Oncology
• Kenju Ando

  National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Department of Breast and Medical Oncology