Science Made Simple: Understanding Lung Cancer with Dr. Brian Henick

Cancer research can be complex, but understanding why it matters should not be. Science Made Simple brings insights from leading physicians and researchers directly to our community, breaking down important advances in cancer research into clear, accessible language.

We recently connected with Dr. Brian Henick, Director of Translational Research in Aerodigestive Cancers and Director of the Phase I Unit at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, about what people should understand about the disease, how research is changing care, and where he sees the greatest promise for the future.

What is one thing you wish more people understood about lung cancer?

Lung cancer is not just one disease. The more we learn about the different histology’s of lung cancer, or how cancer cells look under the microscope, and the mutations that can drive lung cancer, the clearer it becomes that each subgroup has its own properties: who is affected, which treatments are most beneficial, and what kind of outcomes can be achieved.

Because of this, a one-size-fits-all approach is less likely to work in diagnosing and treating lung cancer than more precise, subgroup-focused approaches.

How is research changing the way lung cancer is detected, diagnosed, or treated today?

The better we have come to understand the role of genetic drivers of lung cancer, the easier it is to look for and find these new “subtypes” of lung cancer. In some cases, just a blood test can be enough for us to find relevant mutations that support a lung cancer diagnosis and even point us toward the best treatment for our patients.

Putting these pieces together with advances in imaging technology and the tools we have to interpret the huge amounts of data we can generate may lead to tremendous advances.

What is one area of lung cancer research that you are most excited about, and why?

I am particularly interested in comparing different types of lung cancer to better understand each type. For example, we have known for some time that lung adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma affect different groups of people, look different under the microscope, have different genetic features, and respond differently to treatment. Yet many clinical trials still lump them together.

I have been working with my collaborators to better understand how the immune system responds to adenocarcinoma versus squamous cell carcinoma, and how those differences affect whether immunotherapy will be helpful.

This notion led us to explore whether genomic features associated with immunotherapy resistance in one type of lung cancer might extend to the other, suggesting that certain subgroups of adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma might actually be more similar to each other than we thought.

Hopefully, these kinds of insights can help us refine and improve our treatment strategies for each.

If you could leave patients and families with one hopeful message about the future of lung cancer research, what would it be?

Looking at the lung cancer field as a whole, there has been astonishing progress in a very short time. It seems that the more we slice the “lung cancer” pie into its component parts, the easier it becomes to learn about each small piece, and the faster advances come.

Most kinds of lung cancer have a well-established first option for treatment, and it may be reasonable to hope in many cases that by the time the next treatment is needed, there will be something new and promising to try.