© 2025 HSP News Service, L.L.C.
A strategy of matching molecular abnormalities in patients’ tumors to therapies targeted to those abnormalities is gaining ground, according to preliminary results of the phase IIb MyPathway study presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 These are still early days for this “matching” strategy,...
Goldberg et al found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was active in untreated or progressive brain metastases in melanoma and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details The study included 36 patients at Yale...
As reported by Walter et al in The Lancet Oncology, incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) in high-risk individuals detected new solid nodules in approximately 5% to 7% at second and third screenings in the ongoing Dutch-Belgian NELSON trial. Larger nodule size was associated...
Luis G. Paz-Ares, MD, PhD, of the Hospital Universitario 12 De Octubre, discusses in Spanish study findings on adding necitumumab to gemcitabine and cisplatin chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of patients with stage IV squamous non–small cell lung cancer. To see the English language version of this video, please click here.
Researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) presented a means of evaluating an immunotherapy that fights off non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by strengthening a patient’s own immune system (Scientific Paper 134). Due to...
Although clinical trials have shown that lung cancer screening using low-dose computed tomography (CT) can detect lung cancers early and reduce lung cancer mortality, less than half of family physicians in a recent survey agreed that screening reduces lung cancer–related deaths. Most were...
The use of adjuvant chemotherapy in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients improves overall survival and 5-year overall survival rates in patients with tumor sizes ranging from 3 to 7 cm. These findings were published by Morgensztern et al in the Journal of Thoracic...
Fabrice Denis, MD, PhD, of the Institut Inter-regional de Cancérologie Jean Bernard, discusses findings from a phase III trial on an app used between visits for early detection of symptomatic relapse and complications in high-risk lung cancer patients (Abstract LBA9006). To see the English language version of this discussion, click here.
As reported in The Lancet by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues,1 the phase II/III KEYNOTE-010 trial showed that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs docetaxel in patients with previously treated programmed cell death ligand 1...
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Heather A. Wakelee, MD, of Stanford University, discuss findings on adjuvant chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab for early-stage non–small cell lung cancer, with outcomes based on chemotherapy subsets (Abstract 8507).
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Gideon Michael Blumenthal, MD, of the US Food and Drug Administration, discuss milestone analyses with immune checkpoint inhibitors, targeted therapy, and standard therapy in metastatic non–small cell lung cancer trials submitted to the FDA (Abstract 9010).
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Fabrice Denis, MD, PhD, of the Institut Inter-regional de Cancérologie Jean Bernard, discuss findings from a phase III trial on an app used between visits for early detection of symptomatic relapse and complications in high-risk lung cancer patients (Abstract LBA9006). To see Dr. Denis discuss this study in French, click here. To see the French language version of this discussion, click here.
Charles M. Rudin, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, reports on the encouraging anti-tumor activity of this antibody drug conjugate against one of the most deadly malignancies: recurrent or refractory small cell lung cancer (Abstract LBA8505).
A Web-mediated follow-up application (app; Moovcare™) improved advanced lung cancer survival, according to a French multicenter randomized phase III study. Researchers analyzed the association and evolution of self-reported clinical symptoms over time. The median overall survival of patients...
Early findings from a first-in-human clinical trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) shows promising efficacy against recurrent small cell lung cancer (SCLC). The treatment, which combines a novel anti-DLL3 antibody with a powerful anticancer agent, halted...
Luis G. Paz-Ares, MD, PhD, of the Hospital Universitario 12 De Octubre, discusses study findings on adding necitumumab to gemcitabine and cisplatin chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of patients with stage IV squamous non-small cell lung cancer. To see Dr. Paz-Ares discuss this video in Spanish, please click here.
A study presented by Antonia et al at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 100) showed that utilizing the immunotherapeutic agents nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) could lead to more effective treatment options for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) who have progressed after...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the cobas EGFR Mutation Test v2, a blood-based companion diagnostic for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor erlotinib (Tarceva). This is the first FDA-approved, blood-based genetic test that can detect EGFR gene mutations...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) met April 12 to consider a New Drug Application by Clovis Oncology for rociletinib, an investigational therapy for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients...
In 1996, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN®) published its first set of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology® (NCCN Guidelines®), covering eight tumor types. The NCCN Guidelines® are now published for more than 60 tumor types and topics. Some of the key updates for 2016 were...
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an effective tool that can be used for identifying proto-oncogene 1 receptor tyrosine kinase (ROS1) gene rearrangements and screening patients for the administration of the targeted therapy crizotinib (Xalkori), a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Chromosomal...
Current guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) and American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) recommend that operable patients with clinical stage IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) should receive induction chemotherapy (with or without concurrent radiotherapy) ...
In the phase III MAGRIT trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Vansteenkiste et al found that adjuvant therapy with the MAGE-A3 cancer immunotherapeutic did not improve disease-free survival in patients with resected MAGE-A3–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The...
Black residents of highly segregated neighborhoods were less likely to receive surgery for early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) than their peers in less-segregated neighborhoods, according to a study published by Johnson et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention....
Researchers have found that treating patients who have early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is associated with a small but increased risk of death from causes other than cancer, according to findings presented at the European Society...
As reported in JAMA Oncology, Sacher et al have prospectively validated a plasma droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) assay for detecting common EGFR and KRAS mutations in patients with advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer. Study Details The study involved 180...
The irreversible ErbB family inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif) was associated with improvement in progression-free survival and time to treatment failure vs the reversible EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) inhibitor gefitinib (Iressa) in the first-line treatment of EGFR-mutant non–small...
Three commercially available diagnostic tests were similarly effective in measuring programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein expression on non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor samples, indicating that health-care providers may someday be able to use these tests interchangeably when...
Planchard et al found that the BRAF kinase inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) produced responses in previously treated and untreated patients with BRAF-mutant metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Activating BRAF V600E...
The investigational drug LOXO-101, which selectively targets a family of proteins called neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptors (NTRKs), produced significant tumor regression in patients whose tumors had NTRK gene fusions, according to data from a phase I clinical trial presented by Hong et al at...
The new investigational anticancer therapeutic BGB-283, which targets the RAF family of proteins, was safe, tolerable, and showed signs of clinical activity in patients who had a range of types of cancer with mutations in BRAF, KRAS, and NRAS, according to results from a phase I clinical trial...
The benefit of plasma genotyping to predict treatment benefit in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was confirmed in three studies presented April 15 at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2016 in Geneva. However, researchers warned that plasma tests are unlikely to fully ...
Patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-expressing advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer benefit most from necitumumab (Portrazza) added to gemcitabine and cisplatin chemotherapy, according to a subgroup analysis from the SQUIRE trial presented by Paz-Ares et al (Abstract ...
The third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso) is effective in the first-line treatment of EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a late-breaking abstract presented by Ramalingam et al (Abstract...
Immunotherapy with a live bacterium combined with chemotherapy demonstrated more than 90% disease control and a 59% response rate in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, according to the results of a phase Ib trial presented by Jahan et al April 14 (Abstract 208O_PR) at the European Lung...
In a Japanese phase III trial (WJOG 5108L) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Urata et al found that noninferiority of gefitinib vs erlotinib was not established in previously treated patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer. Study Details In the open-label trial, 559...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Solomon et al found that crizotinib (Xalkori) was associated with a significantly better disease control rate vs chemotherapy among patients with brain metastases in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Crizotinib was also...
On March 11, 2016, crizotinib (Xalkori) was approved for treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ROS1 rearrangement–positive tumors.1,2 A U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved test for the detection of ROS1 rearrangements in NSCLC is not currently...
Updated results of the phase I ASCEND-1 trial, reported by Kim et al in The Lancet Oncology, indicate that the ALK inhibitor ceritinib (Zykadia) produced high response rates in advanced ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including intracranial disease, in both patients with and...
Douglas E. Wood, MD, of the University of Washington, discusses best practices, which enable a complete workup in 1 to 2 weeks in almost all patients, saving unnecessary testing.
Douglas E. Wood, MD, of the University of Washington, discusses important new developments in early detection, the need to educate primary care physicians and patients, and the potential to save up to 15,000 lives each year.
The randomized phase II POPLAR trial—reported by Fehrenbacher and colleagues and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—is another key piece of information for the medical community regarding the value of immune checkpoint blockers in second/third-line treatment of patients with non–small cell...
In the phase II POPLAR trial reported in The Lancet, Louis Fehrenbacher, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, and colleagues found that the investigational anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody atezolizumab improved overall survival vs docetaxel in patients with non–small cell...
Rogerio Lilenbaum, MD, of Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital, discusses the importance of tumor profiling for non–small cell lung cancer and strategies for treating EGFR-positive disease in the first-line setting.
In an analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) cohort reported in The Lancet Oncology, Patz et al found that participants who had a negative low-dose computed tomography (CT) prevalence screen had a low incidence of lung cancer detected at first annual screen and exhibited reduced...
Use of comprehensive geriatric assessment to guide therapy in elderly patients with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) did not improve treatment failure–free or overall survival but was associated with slightly reduced toxicity, based on the results of the phase III...
Healy et al found that greater use of positron-emission tomography (PET) for detection of recurrence of lung and esophageal cancers was not associated with improved survival, suggesting potential overuse of the modality in this setting. They reported their results in the Journal of the National...
Mature results of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B 9761/Alliance study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Martin et al, indicate that occult metastases detected by immunohistochemistry in N2 lymph nodes may be associated with poorer overall survival after resection in clinical stage I...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are ROS1-positive. Crizotinib was first approved in 2011 for the treatment of patients whose tumors are ...
Updated results of the phase I ASCEND-1 trial, reported by Kim et al in The Lancet Oncology, indicate that the ALK inhibitor ceritinib (Zykadia) produced high response rates in advanced ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including intracranial disease, in both patients with...