Each year, in the Austria, around 4000 lung cancer cases including 1500 adenocarcinomas are reported. Up to now, different therapeutic methods including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy have been used against this medical condition.

Martin Filipits as cancer researcher of medical university of Vienna have led a group of scientists and studied on an immune cells surface-expressed checkpoint protein called PD-1. Immune check point proteins define boundaries and limits of immune responses followed prevention of autoimmune diseases. They described that this protein can be used as a marker to predict a survival amount of adenocarcinoma patients.

In their study, they worked on 159 cases with cancer record and observed that about half of them contained PD-1 on the surface of their immune cells defining this protein as a good candidate for prediction of adenocarcinoma survival rate, however, as Filipits says, more studied are still needed.

Ref: Sciencedaily