Cotargeting cyclin D1 starts a new chapter in lung cancer prevention and therapy

Lung cancer has limited effective therapy and no effective prevention. Cytotoxic chemotherapy has not improved when combined with the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor erlotinib (standard lung cancer therapy) or with the rexinoid bexarotene. Combining erlotinib and bexarotene, however, to cotarget cyclin D1 via the retinoid X receptor and EGFR was active preclinically in KRAS-driven lung cancer cells derived from transgenic mice and in two clinical studies in lung cancer (including wild-type EGFR tumors, with or without KRAS mutations), as reported in this issue of the journal by Dragnev and colleagues (beginning on page 818). These results, along with closely related clinical results of the BATTLE program, support the promise of this cotargeting approach for lung cancer prevention and therapy and of cyclin D1 as a predictive, personalizing marker for it.