Precision medicine initiative—report of the 10th Lung Cancer Summit Forum for Chinese Directors of Thoracic Surgery and the 4th Summit Forum for Chinese Lung Cancer Collaborative Group (CLCCG)

The news that U.S. President Barack Obama announced to spend $215 million to launch Precision Medicine Initiative on January 20th, 2015 shocked the world of science, industry and business. Precision Medicine Initiative suddenly became a hot topic among medical people.

The 10th Lung Cancer Summit Forum for Chinese Directors of Thoracic Surgery and the 4th Summit Forum for CLCCG was successfully held at Guangzhou, China on May 24th, 2015. This meeting was attended by distinguished thoracic surgery surgeons from across China, including the meeting chairman Profs. Xiuyi Zhi, Jianxing He and Lanjun Zhang, 29 guest speakers and hundreds of experts (Figure 1). With the vision to establish a large thoracic database so as to develop a high specification platform for lung cancer research, the theme of this year is raised on the basis of previous years: Precision Medicine. It covers precision diagnosis and precision therapy. The main motivation for this forum was to bring together eminent Chinese thoracic surgeons to present their overviews on “precision medicine” and to explore that how to make further progress. This forum also aimed at uniting the academic leaders of Chinese Lung Cancer Collaborative Group (CLCCG).

Figure 1 Group photo of attendees.

The forum was divided into four sessions.

Session 1: opening address from meeting chairman and guests

Prof. Jianxing He emphasized that we have entered the era of precision medicine, which means that a more individualized intervention measures will be used for cancer therapy. Prof. Xiuyi Zhi gave an overview on CLCCG and expected its developments of the future. Mr. Fei Wang spoke on the significance of precision medicine runs through the entire diagnosis and therapy process. Mr. Jian Wang gave a general review on precision medicine and genetic test. Miss Jing Liu put forward a good vision on Chinese lung cancer data and looked forward to global cooperation (Figure 2).

Figure 2 (A) Lanjun Zhang, Meeting Chairman, Director of Thoracic Surgery, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-Sen University; (B) Jianxing He, Meeting Chairman, President of First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University; (C) Xiuyi Zhi, Meeting Chairman, Director of Lung Cancer Clinic Center, Capital Medical University and leader of CLCCG; (D) Fei Wang, Director of National Health and Family Planning Commission; (E) Jian Wang, Chairman of BGI; (F) Jing Liu, Marketing Director, Department of Oncology, AstraZeneca.

Session 2: precision diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer

This session consisted of four general reviews on non-small cell lung cancer and emphasized its diagnosis. Here reviews were given on “The application of magnetic navigation in the diagnosis of NSCLC” by Prof. Hao Wang, “How to cooperate with thoracic surgery department to realize precision diagnosis” by Prof. Xuan Zeng and “Multi-department cooperation makes precision diagnosis and therapy come true” by Prof. Yue Yang. Xiangming Zhang, deputy mayor of Qujing, made a congratulation to this forum. At the end of this session, several experts were invited to have an in-depth discussion of precision diagnosis of lung cancer (Figure 3).

Figure 3 (A) Prof. Hao Wang, Director of Thoracic Surgery, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University; (B) Prof. Xuan Zeng, Department of Pathology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital; (C) Prof. Yue Yang, Director and Deputy Party Secretary of Beijing Cancer Hospital; (D) Xiangming Zhang, Deputy mayor, Qujing, Yunan; (E) Discussion Guests (from left to right): Shun Xu, Di Ge, Yang Ma, Haitao Ma, Xinming Zhou.

Session 3: precision therapy for non-small cell lung cancer

This session gave an emphasis on the precision therapy of NSCLC. Prof. Haifeng Wang reviewed “The trend of precision medicine in thoracic surgery is irreversible”, Prof. Hao Long delivered a speech on “The role EGFR TKI plays in adjuvant therapy of NSCLC” and Prof. Ying Chai gave a view entitled “The clinical practice of EGFR TKI in thoracic surgery”. At last, several experts gave a general overview on the precision therapy of NSCLC (Figure 4).

Figure 4 (A) Prof. Haifeng Wang, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University; (B) Prof. Hao Long, Director of Lung cancer institute, Sun Yat-Sen University; (C) Prof. Ying Chai, Director of Thoracic Surgery, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University; (D) Discussion Guests(from left to right): Kaican Cai, Jianyang Liu, Xiaofeng Chen, Honghe Luo, Chun Chen.

Session 4: outlook of precision medicine in lung cancer

This part was designed to share the current knowledge of precision medicine and explored the progress. Mrs. Danyi Wen illustrated why precision medicine leads the future of lung cancer, Prof. Hu Liao shared the lung cancer database experience of West China Hospital of Sichuan University with us and Prof. Xiaolong Yan spoke on an adjuvant therapy based on blood test and histology detection. Mr. Maxwell J. Kirkby provided an overview of the development of targeted drugs for lung cancer (Figure 5).

Figure 5 (A) Danyi Wen, CEO, Shanghai Lide Biotech Co., Ltd.; (B) Prof. Hu Liao, Department of Thoracic Surgery, West China Hospital of Sichuan University; (C) Prof. Xiaolong Yan, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tangdu hospital of Fourth Military Medical University; (D) Maxwell J. Kirkby, Vice President, Geftinib, AstraZeneca.

In the end, Prof. Xiuyi Zhi gave a summary talk on precision medicine and this meeting. It was time to open a new chapter on cancer therapy and let’s look forward to the treatment changes for oncology.

Popularity of the book Lung Cancer

The book Lung Cancer, edited by Prof. Jianxing He, Thomas A. D’Amico and Prof. Xiuyi Zhi, is acclaimed as “Treasure for individualized treatment for lung cancer”. The hall selling this book was crowded with people who were making handshakes, taking photography and signatures (Figure 6).

Figure 6 The sense of selling the book Lung Cancer.

Acknowledgements

None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.