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A new study by thoracic surgeons and pathologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center shows that a specific pattern found in the tumor pathology of some lung cancer patients is a strong predictor of recurrence. Knowing that this feature exists in a tumor’s pathology could be an important...
The PARAMOUNT trial1 represents an important landmark study of continuation maintenance therapy with pemetrexed (Alimta). While maintenance therapy gained a toehold in routine management of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) several years ago, the first trials that demonstrated a...
In the phase III PARAMOUNT trial, pemetrexed (Alimta) continuation maintenance therapy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 38% compared with placebo after pemetrexed/cisplatin induction in patients with advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Final overall...
Researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center have identified four inherited genetic variants in patients with non–small cell lung cancer that can help predict survival and treatment response. Their findings, published in Carcinogenesis,1 could help lead to more personalized treatment options and...
The treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is rapidly evolving as molecular targets are being refined and targeted drugs are designed to combat acquired resistance. In his State of the Art Lecture at the 14th International Lung Cancer Congress, Dr. Bunn, Professor of Medicine and the James ...
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in the world. In the United States alone, an estimated 228,190 new cases of lung cancer and 159,480 deaths from lung cancer will occur in 2013. These are alarming statistics when compared to the next four common causes of cancer-related...
Following the recent recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) that individuals most at risk for lung cancer be screened, Lung Cancer Alliance has launched a national multimedia public education campaign urging individuals to assess their risk for lung cancer. The “Moments” ...
VeriStrat, a serum-based protein assay, can help select which patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) not known to have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations might benefit from an EGFR-targeted agent, according to a study presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting by Vanesa Gregorc, ...
Patients with stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are medically inoperable have an excellent chance at full local tumor control and long-term survival with stereotactic body radiation therapy. Hak Choy, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at The University...
At the 14th International Lung Cancer Congress, held recently in Huntington Beach, California, Tony S.K. Mok, MD, Professor of Clinical Oncology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was the honored recipient of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Award. The award was presented by Ms....
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” —Leonardo da Vinci Lung cancer CT screening may have had no greater advocate than Claudia I. Henschke, PhD, MD. In the face of...
This recent paper in The New England Journal of Medicine outlines the details of the clinical outcomes with two incidence screens that were conducted as part of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST).1 In the wake of the positive review of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) draft...
Results of the two rounds of annual incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) vs radiography in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) were recently reported by Denise R. Aberle, MD, Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering at the University of California at Los Angeles and...
Cancer advocates and clinical trialists, for some time, have been proposing a radical change to the laborious drug development process—that industry, academia, funding sources, and other stakeholders actually pool their brain power and financial means and work together, not separately, to develop...
The engineered monoclonal antibody MPDL3280A achieved encouraging and durable responses in a phase I study in metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in both smokers and nonsmokers, as well as in cancers of squamous and adenocarcinoma histology. Responses were more robust in smokers than...
Interim data from a Phase IB trial evaluating the investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, MK-3475, in patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were presented recently at the 15th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Sydney, Australia. Edward Garon, MD, Director of Thoracic ...
Both pemetrexed (Alimta) and gefitinib (Iressa) are standard second-line treatments for advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in East Asia. In a phase II trial (CTONG 0806) reported at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference on Lung...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have the ALK gene rearrangement usually respond to the drug crizotinib (Xalkori), with a median duration of response of approximately 10 months. In a study reported by Shirish Gadgeel, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and...
Over the past decade, Fadlo R. Khuri, MD, Professor and Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Chair of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Deputy Director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta, has focused his research and clinical career on investigating novel approaches in the ...
The 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC), held September 27 to October 1 in Amsterdam, was jointly sponsored by the European Society of Medical Oncology, the European Cancer Organization, and the European Society of Radiation Oncology. With the Congress theme being “Reinforcing Multidisciplinarity,” ...
Identifying ALK rearrangements as a cancer target in patients with lung cancer led to the development and FDA approval of crizotinib (Xalkori) to treat ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Several second-generation ALK inhibitors are in development, and these agents appear to work in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted regular approval for crizotinib (Xalkori) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test. The approval was based...
As reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Glenwood D. Goss, MD, of the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center, and colleagues, the prematurely closed NCIC CTG BR19 study showed no apparent survival benefit of adjuvant gefitinib (Iressa, withdrawn from U.S. market) vs placebo in patients with completely ...
At a recent meeting in Washington, DC, Friends of Cancer Research and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution officially announced activation of the Lung Cancer Master Protocol, a new research strategy that has the potential to hurdle or bypass known clinical trial...
Despite optimal surgical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy with cisplatin-based doublets, the 5-year overall survival for patients with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains suboptimal. In the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) staging project, the...
This issue of The ASCO Post launches a Clinical Trials Resource Guide to increase awareness of NCI-funded phase I, II, and III clinical studies for your patients with advanced cancer. All of the studies are listed on the National Institutes of Health website at ClinicalTrials.gov. The clinical...
The American Lung Association issued the following statement on December 31, 2013, in response to the recommendation of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) to screen individuals at high risk of lung cancer. “The [USPSTF] made a recommendation that will save lives. The Task Force...
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column offering insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. This installment addresses a changing paradigm in the treatment of lung cancer, exemplified by concurrent approval of a companion diagnostic with each of several new targeted agents or new...
More than 18% of all lung cancers detected by low-dose computed tomography in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) may be clinically insignificant. Overdiagnosis should be considered when describing the risks of [low-dose computed tomography] screening for lung cancer, according to a review of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for dabrafenib (Tafinlar) for the treatment of patients with metastatic BRAF V600E mutation–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have received at least one prior line of platinum-containing...
Editor’s note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued a report on lung cancer incidence trends in the United States.1 According to the report, incidence rates for lung cancer have decreased between 2005 and 2009, the period evaluated. Lung cancer incidence has...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has posted a supplemental fact sheet for clinicians on its final recommendation statement on screening for lung cancer.1 This resource is meant to help health-care professionals talk about lung cancer screening with their patients and determine if screening...
The combination of nintedanib and docetaxel “is an effective second-line option” for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have received previous treatment with one line of platinum-based therapy, according to results from the phase III LUME-Lung 1 study published in The...
David A. Fullerton, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, was elected President of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) at the Society’s 50th Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. “STS has been a preeminent medical society for many years,” said Dr. Fullerton. “It is truly a great...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Gold and colleagues developed a risk model for recurrence of resected non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) based on protein expression and clinical variables. The study involved analysis of samples from 370 patients with NSCLC resected between 2002 and ...
Early last year, just as I returned to my residency in neurologic surgery at Stanford University after completing 2 years of my postdoctoral fellowship in a laboratory developing optogenetic techniques, I started losing weight—dropping from 180 lb to 160 lb in just 6 months—and I was having fairly...
Clinical trials of antioxidants in cancer have yielded inconsistent results. In a study reported in Science Translational Medicine, Sayin and colleagues evaluated the effects of the antioxidants N-acetylcysteine and vitamin E in mouse models of BRAF- and KRAS-induced lung cancer. N-acetylcysteine...
For decades, dedicated members of the oncology community have fought to increase the nation’s focus on lung cancer prevention and treatment. Although smoking cessation initiatives have reduced cigarette consumption, lung cancer 5-year survival has remained stagnant at 15%, lagging far below most...
The majority of current and former smokers would welcome screenings for lung cancer if their insurance covered the spiral computed tomography (CT) scans, according to research from Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Medical University of South Carolina. The study by Jennifer Delmerico, MPH, and...
The ASCO Cancer Research Committee recently convened four disease-specific working groups—in pancreas, breast, lung, and colon cancers—to “consider the design of future clinical trials that would produce results that are clinically meaningful to patients.” An ASCO perspective statement, reported in ...
In a phase III trial (LUME-Lung 1) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Reck et al assessed the addition of nintedanib to docetaxel in second-line treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).1 The combination significantly improved progression-free survival in all patients and improved overall...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to ceritinib (Zykadia) for patients with a metastatic anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori). Ceritinib is an ALK tyrosine kinase...
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring ALK rearrangement is sensitive to the ALK inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori), but resistance ultimately occurs. In a phase I study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, and...
In a systematic review and individual patient meta-analysis reported in The Lancet,1 the NSCLC Meta-analysis Collaborative Group found that neoadjuvant therapy for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was associated with a significant 13% reduction in risk of death. Significant benefits in...
In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted belinostat (Beleodaq), a targeted histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, priority review status based on a pivotal phase II trial in peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Just 1 month later, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in...
Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitors are an emerging area of interest in cancer therapeutics. Studies presented at the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego provided early encouraging data for two investigational pan-FGFR inhibitors for the...
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), held recently in Hollywood, Florida, NCCN Panel members presented updates for several tumor types, briefly summarized here. For a more complete description of all updates, visit www.nccn.org. Breast Cancer Guidelines ...
Minority patients with lung cancer who receive treatment in practices affiliated with provider-based research networks “have greater hospice enrollment than those treated in academic and community practices,” concluded Dolly C. Penn, MD, MSCR, and colleagues at the University of North Carolina...
As reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Nakaoku and colleagues identified oncogene fusions that function as driver mutations in KRAS wild-type invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma of the lung. Whole-transcriptome sequencing of 32 invasive mucinous adenocarcinomas, including 27 without KRAS mutations,...
There are currently 172 computed tomography (CT)-based lung screening centers up and running in the United States, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance.1 In a presentation at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego, Reginald Munden, MD, DMD, MBA, and Ralph...