New drug active against most aggressive type of lung cancer cells

Manchester scientists have shown that a new drug could prove useful in treating small cell lung cancer – the most aggressive form of lung cancer.

Scientists from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, based at The University of Manchester and part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, teamed up with experts at AstraZeneca, as part of a collaboration agreed in 2010, to test a drug – known as AZD3965 – on small cell lung cancer cells.

The research, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, also helps identify which patients are most likely to respond to the treatment.

One treatment approach currently being investigated by cancer scientists is finding drugs that exploit the change in energy production in tumours. In cancer cells there is a switch to using glycolysis, a process that requires less oxygen and produces lactate as a by-product. Certain molecules – monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs) –…