ENLItN
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Eastern and North Western Lung Cancer In Never-Smokers Cohort
IRAS ID
335582
Contact name
Frank McCaughan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
8 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The purpose of this study is to first establish a cohort of patients with never-smoking lung cancer or with lung cancer that has one of the gene alterations commonly seen in never-smoking lung cancer; and then to try to understand what the links are between the disease and inherited or acquired/environmental risk.
Lung Cancer in Never-Smokers (LCINS) is responsible for approximately 1/6th of all lung cancers. The cause is poorly understood and there is little detailed information available in the UK about patients who have been affected.
Key Question
The majority of patients with lung cancer have a history of smoking. When someone is diagnosed with lung cancer having not smoked cigarettes a recurrent question is “Why me?”. This proposal is designed to address that question.The approach?
We aim to use a combination of genetic and environmental profiling in patients with lung cancer to build an understanding of why an individual may have developed the disease. We will then assess whether signatures of the disease can be picked up in a blood test.For this we need to perform genetic tests on patient tissue and blood and ask questions about previous environmental exposure. We will ask participants to complete a detailed questionnaire about their lifetime environmental exposure and agree to a blood sample.
We will also ask for access to archived tumour tissue, or DNA derived from tissue, that is no longer relevant to clinical decision-making.
The questionnaire will be used to estimate, measure and understand environmental exposures that an individual may have experienced. Genetic sequencing will be performed on the tissue and blood specimens. This will create a dataset of signatures which we can then use to assess correlation between an individual’s genetic signature and their specific environmental exposures. From this we can try to define a UK risk profile for LCINS.
REC name
London - West London & GTAC Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/PR/1513
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jan 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion