A team from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City identified a new, rare form of small cell lung cancer, found primarily in patients who have no history of smoking.
The team consisted of 42 Memorial Sloan Kettering physicians and researchers, whose findings were published Aug. 26 in the American Association for Cancer Research journal, Cancer Discovery.
The new form of cancer is being called "atypical small cell lung carcinoma," according to a Sept. 11 news release from Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Small cell lung cancer accounts for 10% to 15% of lung cancers. Of the 600 patients with small cell lung cancer included in the study, 3% were found to have atypical small cell lung carcinoma.
Sixty-five percent of those patients classified themselves as "never smokers," the release said.
"This new disease type has distinct clinical and pathological features and a distinct molecular mechanism," Memorial Sloan Kettering pathologist Natasha Rekhtman, MD, PhD, said in the release.
Atypical small cell lung carcinoma patients have intact copies of two genes normally deactivated in small cell lung cancer patients. Instead, atypical small cell lung cancer carcinoma patients show evidence of chromothripsis, the shattering or rearranging of chromosomes, according to the release.
These patients may benefit "from investigational drugs that target the unusual DNA structures that result from chromothripsis" as opposed to standard chemotherapy treatment, the release said.