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Everett E. Vokes, MD, of the University of Chicago, summarizes expert views on treating stage IIIA disease: decision-making in selecting patients for surgery; multiple-modality choices; and using induction chemotherapy (Abstract ED10).
Naiyer A. Rizvi, MD, of Columbia University, offers an update on immune checkpoint inhibitors in non–small cell lung cancer: what’s new and what’s next.
Nagashree Seetharamu, MD, of the North Shore LIJ Health System, discusses serum AGA-signatures that may provide a minimally invasive test for early detection of lung cancer risk (Abstract P3.04-085).
William D. Travis, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, gives an update on the WHO classification, which is crucial for optimal personalized treatment of lung cancer patients (Abstract PLEN02.01).
Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, of the University of Colorado Health Science Center, and Paul A. Bunn, Jr, MD, of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, give their views on the goals and important presentations of the 2015 World Conference on Lung Cancer.
Karen Kelly, MD, of the University of California, Davis, summarizes three important papers on NSCLC: expression as a predictive biomarker; pembrolizumab, immune-mediated adverse events, and corticosteroid use; and an evaluation of disease-related symptoms in patients treated with nivolumab or docetaxel (Abstracts ORAL 31.01, 31.02, and 31.03).
Philip Bonomi, MD, of Rush Medical College, summarizes a debate on two important issues: choosing between surgery and stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in operable NSCLC, and whether or not to use SBRT for nonbiopsied lung nodules (Abstract PC 01).
Philip Bonomi, MD, of Rush Medical College, summarizes the findings on anamorelin and its use in advanced NSCLC for improvement in anorexia/cachexia symptoms (Abstracts ORAL 29.01, ORAL 29.02).
Ugo Pastorino, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori Foundation, discusses his study, which showed that stopping smoking before or during low-dose computed tomography screening reduced overall mortality by more than 25%, a benefit that is three- to fivefold greater than this type of screening (Abstract PLEN04.07).
Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, summarizes a workshop he conducted on the state of the art in next-generation sequencing of lung cancer (Abstract WS 01.07).
James R. Jett, MD, of National Jewish Health, discusses his study of the early CDT-Lung biomarker. His hypothesis: When used in combination with low-dose CT in screening of a high-risk population, this biomarker would increase the detection of early-stage lung cancer (Abstract MINI 12.11).
Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the ways in which patients, investigators, and pharmaceutical companies are working together to accelerate research and access to care (Abstract MTE 02.01).
James L. Mulshine, MD, of Rush University Medical Center, discusses the profound challenges of implementing national CT screening to ensure delivery of high-quality, best-practice early lung cancer detection in the target population of tobacco-exposed individuals (Abstract MS 15.01).
Christine D. Berg, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses how increased insurance coverage should dramatically increase lung cancer screening. If done correctly—which will be a challenge—screening will help improve the prognosis of patients with lung cancer (Abstract PLEN 01.01).
Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, summarizes efficacy and safety data from studies on crizotinib, brigatinib, and alectinib for ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (ORAL 33.03, 33.06, 33.07).
Heather A. Wakelee, MD, of Stanford University discusses the study that explored the question of whether adding bevacizumab to adjuvant chemotherapy is beneficial in the setting of resected non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract PLEN04.03).
Tony Mok, MD, of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, of University of Colorado Health Science Center discuss the highlights of the featured plenary session, which included the conference’s top four abstracts (Abstract PLEN04).
Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale Cancer Center, discusses his findings of a phase III study comparing carboplatin/paclitaxel or carboplatin/paclitaxel/bevacizumab with or without concurrent cetuximab in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract PLEN04.01).
Silvia Novello, MD, PhD, of the University of Turin, discusses a much-neglected aspect of lung cancer: It is not just the province of men; women are affected in great numbers as well.
Barbara J. Gitlitz, MD, of USC/Norris Cancer Center, discusses the first prospective study on the genomic drivers and demographics of lung cancer in patients under 40 who took part in the study remotely via the Internet (Abstract ORAL22.05).
Howard Jack West, MD, of the Swedish Cancer Institute, summarizes three important papers: anlotinib as third-line treatment for refractory advanced non–small cell lung cancer; the EGFR exon 20 mutation as a prognostic/predictive biomarker; and EGFR exon 18 mutations as molecular predictors of sensitivity to afatinib or neratinib (Abstracts ORAL 3.01, 3.02, and 3.03).
Eric Lim, MD, of the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, discusses his findings on the nonspecific symptoms of never-smokers, which suggests that imaging could play a more important role in diagnosing these patients at an earlier stage.
Lorraine Cheryl Pelosof, MD, PhD, of UT Southwestern Medical Center, discusses her study findings, which demonstrate an increasing proportion of never-smokers among patients with non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract ORAL 22.01).
M. Catherine Pietanza, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses rovalpituzumab tesirine, a promising DLL3-targeted antibody drug conjugate, the first precision treatment for small cell lung cancer (Abstract 7LBA).
Benjamin Besse, MD, PhD, of the Institut Gustave Roussy, and Tony Mok, MD, of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, discuss this phase II trial of atezolizumab as first-line or subsequent therapy for locally advanced or metastatic PD-L1–selected NSCLC (Abstract 17LBA).
Jean-Yves Douillard, MD, PhD, of Centre R Gauducheau, reviews new clinical trials and data on systemic and radiation treatment of small cell lung cancer.
Tony Mok, MD, of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discuss the current status and future outlook of ALK inhibition, and an assessment of brigatinib CNS activity in patients with ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer and intracranial metastases (Abstract 3061).
Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, summarizes an important study: the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in previously treated non-small cell lung cancer (Abstract LBA33).
Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, summarizes an important study: afatinib vs erlotinib in squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.
Rolf A. Stahel, MD, of University Hospital, Zurich, discusses this phase II trial of erlotinib and bevacizumab in patients with advanced, EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer without T790M mutation. The study was sponsored by The Spanish Lung Cancer Group and the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (Abstract 3BA).
Amelie Harle, MD, of the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, discusses a clinical trial––the first of its kind—designed to assess the efficacy of an antitussive in patients with lung cancer (Abstract 2).
Stephen G. Chun, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the comparison of 3D conformal and IMRT outcomes for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (Abstract 2).
Brian D. Kavanagh, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, summarizes three papers: outcomes for locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer, 3D CRT vs image-guided intensity-modulated radiotherapy for reducing bowel toxicity, and dexamethasone for controlling pain flares in patients with bone metastases (Abstracts 2, 8, LBA6663).
Roy Decker, MD, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine, discusses a National Cancer Database analysis that showed elderly patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer can benefit from adding concurrent radiation to chemotherapy (Abstract 1010).
An increase in the stage of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) due to cancer-positive lymph node discovery was more common following open chest surgery for lung lobe removal of early-stage lung cancer compared to the closed-chest procedure known as video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS). The...
Since the initial discovery of ALK rearrangement in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 2007,1 small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors of ALK have transformed the course of disease for those patients with ALK-rearranged (ie, ALK-positive) NSCLC. Crizotinib (Xalkori), a multitargeted tyrosine...
In two phase II trials, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and The Lancet Oncology, the ALK inhibitor alectinib (Alecensa), which is active against acquired crizotinib resistance mutations and exhibits high central nervous system (CNS) penetration, was associated with considerable...
Two investigative groups have reported interesting observations about genomic alterations in the tumors of young patients with lung cancer. Notably, ALK rearrangement was the most common driver mutation found, in studies reported at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.1,2 “To our knowledge,...
Overall survival in patients with surgically resected early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) did not improve with the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy, according to the findings of a study researchers have called a “top abstract” from the 16th World Conference on Lung...
In a North American phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Shaw et al found that alectinib (Alecensa), which is active against acquired crizotinib (Xalkori) resistance mutations and exhibits high central nervous system (CNS) penetration, was associated with considerable activity in...
Body mass index affects outcomes following lung resection for lung cancer. Patients with very high or very low body mass index measurements have the highest risks for complications, according to a scientific presentation at the 52nd Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. The abstract...
In a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Sequist et al reported clinical benefit with the recently approved third-generation EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso) in patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who had disease...
Solid-organ transplant recipients have a higher rate of cancer mortality than what is expected in the general population, according to a Canadian study by Acuna et al published in JAMA Oncology. Cancer mortality among transplant recipients was significantly elevated compared with data for the...
As reported in The Lancet by Herbst et al, the phase II/III KEYNOTE-010 trial showed that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs docetaxel in patients with previously treated programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer...
More than a decade after lung cancer incidence and death rates began to decline in men, a statistically significant decrease in the rates are occurring among women. The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975 to 2007, is the first to document these decreases, the report’s authors...
The findings from a phase I study of crizotinib in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were presented in a Plenary Session at the 2010 ASCO Annual Meeting—an unusual event, since such early-phase data are not generally the topic of plenary sessions. The study showed that a majority of mostly...
Maintenance therapy with either pemetrexed (Alimta) or gefitinib (Iressa) achieved modest improvements in progression-free survival in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The magnitude of improved progression-free survival was 1.3 months and 2.2 months, respectively, in the...
Among the newer approaches to treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are heat-shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitors, toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) agonists, and vascular-disrupting agents. So far, none appears to be a “home run,” but Hsp90 inhibition may be the most promising of the three...
The results of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) will have important implications for practicing oncologists if low-dose helical CT screening is used routinely in the clinic. First, we will begin to find many more small tumors than we do now. This will pose new sets of questions for...
The NCI-funded National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 was heralded as a landmark study in lung cancer detection. This study is the first comprehensive clinical trial to find that screening high-risk individuals with low-dose CT reduces lung ...