Virginia Via Research Day Book 2026

Medical Student Research Clinical

33 TARGETED THERAPIES AND PATIENT OUTCOMES IN NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER: A TIME SERIES ANALYSIS USING THE NIH GENOMIC DATA COMMONS DATABASE

Shuvojeet Paul, OMS-II; Kaine Lovill, OMS-II; Bernard Kadio, MD, PhD, MPH; Amy Hicks, PhD; Jessica Nicholson, MAT; Ramu Anandakrishnan, PhD Corresponding author: spaul@vcom.edu, klovill@vcom.edu

VCOM-Virginia, Blacksburg, Virginia VCOM-Carolinas, Spartanburg, South Carolina

comorbidities, and time out of hospital/number of trips to the hospital post treatment initiation. Patients in clinical trials were excluded from the analysis. The R program was used to compare event rates between different lines of treatment, using the chi square method. Preliminary Results: The NIH database yielded 3274 NSCLC patients. The statistical analysis is ongoing at the time of this submission. Data will be reported on: • Lines of Treatment • 5-year survival rates • Reported rates of side effects • Number of visits to the ER after treatment initiation • Overall quality of life • Biomarker status Conclusion: We anticipate that the analysis from the NIH Genomic Data Commons NSCLC cohort will suggest that the emerging therapies have an overall higher survival rate and lower comorbidities compared to classic cytotoxic treatment. However, we expect some combinations to be better tolerated and more effective

than others, depending on mutation and patient profiles. Significance: The advent of precision medicine has paved the way to new therapies in NSCLC patient care, allowing higher survival rates and better patient outcomes. Key determinants of treatment performance rest on mutation type and patient profile. Further research is needed at a larger scale to validate these results and determine the best treatment guidelines.

Background: Available SEER data suggest that lung and bronchus neoplasms rank as the leading causes of mortality by cancer in the US, accounting for a 20% mortality rate for all cancers. The five-year survival rate is generally estimated at only 28.1%. From a histological standpoint, about 87% of lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). The first-line treatment for decades for stage IV NSCLC has been cytotoxic chemotherapy. However, an emerging line of combination therapies is now available, associating the classic first line to more targeted approaches. The extent to which these new therapies improve patient outcomes remains underexplored. Objectives: The goal of this study was to analyze survival rates and quality of life of various NSCLC treatment protocols using both targeted therapies alone versus traditional cytotoxic therapy or versus a combination of both. Methods: We conducted a time-series analysis of a cohort of patients retrieved from the NIH Genomic Data Commons Database between October 27th and November 2nd, 2025. A codebook was created that included the following variables: line of therapy, survival rate, reported side effects, development of

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