Analysis: Take lessons from cancer evolution to the clinic

TRACERx, the first long-term study of how lung cancer evolves, is revealing that therapies targeting multiple proteins in tumour cells could help outpace the disease. Here, Chief Investigator Professor Charles Swanton (UCL Cancer Institute), discusses the latest findings. How non-small-cell lung cancer evolves in individual patients is being studied in a project called TRACERx (Tracking Cancer Evolution through Therapy), the first such large-scale, longitudinal study to do so. Insights from the project so far are compiled this week  in a collection in  Nature . Started in 2014, the project aims to follow 840 people being treated at 14 UK National Health Service hospitals, from diagnosis through to cure or relapse and, tragically, death. Some tantalizing results have begun to emerge. These help to explain why early diagnosis is so crucial for effective treatment, as clinicians have noted for decades.