View clinical trials related to Lung Cancer.
Filter by:RATIONALE: Photodynamic therapy uses a drug, such as porfimer sodium, that is absorbed by tumor cells. The drug becomes active when it is exposed to light. When the drug is active, tumor cells are killed. Giving photodynamic therapy during surgery may kill any tumor cells that remain after surgery. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying the side effects and how well photodynamic therapy given during surgery works in treating patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer that has spread to the pleura.
The purpose of this study is to find out what effects (good and/or bad) a tumor vaccine used in combination with two drugs (ATRA and cytoxan) have on the patient and their cancer. We also want to find out if the vaccine and the drugs can boost the patient's immune system and how their immune system reacts, both before and after the vaccine treatment.
This research study is being done because patients with a history of chest radiation treatment for Hodgkin's disease have been shown to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer a number of years out from treatment. The risk appears to be further increased among patients with a smoking history. Currently, the practice is to recommend annual low-dose chest CT scans in survivors of Hodgkin's disease who have received prior chest radiation treatment and who have at least a moderate smoking history. In this study, the CT scans will be read and interpreted by the study radiologist, and the results recorded in a consistent manner.
RATIONALE: Vaccines made from a gene-modified virus may help the body build an effective immune response to kill tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of vaccine therapy in treating patients with stage IIIB, stage IV, or recurrent non-small cell lung cancer.
This study is being conducted to determine if a combination of AZD6244 given orally twice a day with standard doses of selected chemotherapies will be safe and tolerable for cancer patients with advanced solid tumors. The highest tolerated dose of AZD6244 in combination with selected chemotherapies will be evaluated. The study will also investigate how AZD6244 in combination with standard chemotherapies are absorbed, distributed and excreted by the body as well as the length of time that the drugs remain in the body. Initial and periodic assessments will establish patient response to the combination therapies
The purpose of this study is to see if researchers can improve the detection of lung cancer by using a new method which will help us to take multiple snapshot images of the lungs while the patient is breathing. We are also investigating whether with the help of this new method we can better measure the actual amount of radioactivity that is taken up by the cancer. The name of this new method is respiratory gated PET/CT. Previous research has shown that PET scans may be useful in investigating whether cancer has spread to other parts of the lung or body. Using our standard method, smaller cancers are sometimes difficult to detect in the lungs because the PET images are taken over several minutes and the patient is breathing during that time. That means the cancer may appear "blurred" on the images (like a poor photograph) or may not be identified at all. In this study, in addition to the images that were ordered by your doctor, we will take additional images of your lungs while you are following a breathing command ("breath in-hold-breath out"). We will then compare the images of your cancer during the regular PET study with those taken during the breathing commands. The hypotheses to be tested in this pilot study are: 1. Respiratory gated image acquisition reduces partial volume effects on PET image that may render lung lesions undetectable. 2. Breath-hold CT may detect small lung lesions that are beyond the limit of detection in shallow-breathing CT scans, related to respiratory motion which causes blurring artifacts around smaller lung lesions.
The purpose of this study is to see if different types of surgery for lung cancer have different effects on quality of life and pain. What we learn from this study may help us find new ways to improve the quality of life of lung cancer patients who have surgery.
There are two goals of this research study. First, we hope to develop a plan to guide family discussions that can help parents diagnosed with lung cancer talk about cancer risk with their adult children. Second, we want to understand how families talk about cancer prevention.
The purpose of this study is to help us better understand the cellular changes that may lead to the development of lung cancer. We want to compare people who have never smoked and yet have been diagnosed with lung cancer to never smokers who have not developed lung cancer. We hope to use the information obtained in this study as the basis for future studies and will not regard the results from this study as final.
Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in Kentucky and has a very high incidence within the 5th Congressional District of Kentucky (110.8 cases per 100,000 in period 1996-2000). Surgical removal provides the best chance for cure. Unfortunately, the majority of lung cancer cases are detected in an advanced stage, when surgical resection is impossible. This leads to shorter survival rates and increased mortality rates for lung cancer, increased patient suffering, and greater cost to the healthcare system. Methods that favor earlier detection are therefore crucial for successful treatment. One such method, low-dose spiral computed tomography (CT) is being studied to determine whether its use as a screening method will lead to earlier detection and earlier intervention, perhaps impacting survival and mortality in lung cancer. This method has a modest sensitivity to detect lung cancer, but low specificity, which leads to many false positives and a low negative predictive value. The present study is designed to address both of these limitations by: 1) identifying individuals in the population at highest risk for developing lung cancer (due to smoking habits and decreased pulmonary function) for subsequent CT screening, and 2) performing biomarker testing in conjunction with the CT scan to improve the ability to discern individuals with benign lung nodules from those with malignant tumors. The 5th Congressional District of Kentucky has one of the highest rates of lung cancer in the nation and is an ideal location to test the validity (sensitivity and specificity), feasibility (negative and positive predictive value), and efficacy (stage distribution shift to earlier stage disease, increased survival, and decreased cancer-specific mortality) of these strategies to enhance early detection.