A clinical trial led by David Carbone, MD, PhD, and the James is improving the outcome for patients with metastatic, non-small cell lung cancer. “About 80 percent of the patients in the trial are still alive at three years … and we’re pretty excited about that,” said Carbone, director of the James Thoracic Oncology Center. In this episode, Carbone describes the clinical trial he led, which involved 183 patients at cancer centers across the country. Patients were treated with an immunotherapy drug (atezolizumab) before surgery. In 20 percent of these patients, less than 10 percent of the tumor remained before surgery and “in seven percent there was no tumor left,” Carbone said. The immunotherapy used in the trail blocks a protein found on cancer cells that prevents the immune system from discovering and destroying these cells. “It’s like turning off the force field on the Starship Enterprise,” is how Carbone described the effect. Another aspect of the trial was to take a blood sample of patients, then examine these samples for “cell-surface markers … to determine if the patient would respond to atezolizumab,” Carbone said. This was significant, as future patients unlikely to respond to this specific immunotherapy can be treated with a different immunotherapy more likely to result in a better outcome. “We can tailor our treatment to the specific molecular features,” Carbone said. “This is a step in the right direction.”