Abstract 3939: Exploiting tumor treating fields induced downregulation of BRCA1 pathway for novel combination therapies

A new physical cancer treatment modality called Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) has demonstrated effectiveness in the treatment of solid tumors in vitro and in vivo. TTFields therapy is a non-invasive cancer treatment modality that delivers low intensity (1-3 V/cm), intermediate frequency (100-300 kHz) alternating electric fields to the tumor. The TTFields delivery device called Optune (NovoCure), has been approved for recurrent and newly diagnosed glioblastoma and clinical trials are ongoing for other cancers. The primary mechanism of TTFields action is thought to be interference with mitosis. We monitored temporal gene expression changes in 5 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines whose response to TTFields is variable and found that the expression of the BRCA1 DNA damage repair pathway, as well as other DNA repair/checkpoint pathways were significantly downregulated (P