MRFF funding received for critical lung cancer research
06 June 2025
Professor Shankar Siva has received a $1.5 million MRFF grant to test if using radiotherapy to kill the primary tumour in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will limit the spread of cancer, enhance treatment effects and improve patient outcomes.
Professor Siva explained that there is an urgent need to improve lung cancer outcomes since outcomes are very poor once the cancer has spread. Over half of all patients are diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and for them survival is typically less than two years.
“Studies in other cancers have shown that non-invasive radiotherapy to the primary tumour, even when the cancer has spread to other areas, improves patient survival,” he said.
“Our project, called PRIME-Lung, will test for the first time if this strategy is effective in lung cancer too.
“We believe that when we eradicate the primary tumour with radiotherapy we also enhance the impact of drug treatments and prevent further spreading of cancer to other sites.
“Current treatment strategies in advanced lung cancer rely on drug treatments, however, patients inevitably develop resistance to treatment, so we need to explore alternatives.”
Professor Siva emphasised that radiotherapy is already used in other lung cancer contexts and the expansion to this area is a simple yet innovative approach to address the unmet need that exists for patients with advanced NSCLC.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death and is the second most common cancer in both men and women in Australia, and globally. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 85% of cases.