Given the disease burden in terms of high incidence, morbidity and mortality, lung cancer (LC) constitutes not just a medical, but also a relevant socioeconomic challenge both at national and regional level, with Piedmont representing one of the Italian regions with the highest rate of LC incidence/mortality. Paradoxically, the burden that LC imposes on patients and caregivers, as well as on the Regional Health system, could be avoided in as many as 80-90% of cases, by adopting a healthy lifestyle (no first- or secondhand
smoking, balanced diet, adequate level of physical activity).
The project, aiming at understanding the biological link between lifestyle, tumour biology, systemic inflammation and cancer progression with a holistic view, will be the first in Piedmont to help defining prognostic/predictive models based on functional biomarkers, to propose personalized lifestyle interventions, serving the final purpose to reduce LC morbidity and mortality by maximizing therapeutic efficacy and patients’ quality of life. Furthermore the project may have a positive impact on the Regional and National Health System, which, in the long term, will be able to reduce both the direct (drugs and oncological care) and indirect (loss of productivity) costs related to the clinical management of LC patients.
Finally, the project concept is fully coherent with the precision medicine paradigm, which is one of the main research assets of the UNITO Department of Oncology, thus providing a great opportunity to capilalize existing resourses and expertise and produce strong scientific evidence for enhanced scientific collaborations, improved/tailored policies and legal frameworks as well as to inform major policy initiatives both at national and regional level.