Lung Cancer

Durvalumab treatment in the second-line setting or beyond demonstrated clinical benefit and led to durable responses in heavily pretreated patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

Treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab significantly improved overall survival compared to standard chemotherapy in patients with non–small lung cancer who progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy.

Patients with non–small cell lung cancer treated in the pembrolizumab arm of the KEYNOTE-024 trial experienced improved quality of life compared with patients who were treated with standard chemotherapy.

Heather Wakelee, MD, medical oncologist, Stanford University Medical Center, discusses a next-generation sequencing platform for the detection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) EGFR T790M mutation in urine and plasma samples, during an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, professor, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Deputy Director, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discusses the role of osimertinib in the treatment of patients with EGFR T790M-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer, during an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

Osimertinib (Tagrisso) reduced the risk of disease progression by 70% compared with a chemotherapy doublet in patients with EGFR T790M-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who progressed after first-line targeted therapy.

Frontline treatment with ceritinib (Zykadia) improved progression-free survival over standard chemotherapy in patients with ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer.

Rosalyn Juergens, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Oncology, Division of Medical Oncology, McMaster University, discusses the results of the IND.226 trial, in an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

Claire Verschraegen, MD, professor of Medical Oncology, University of Vermont Cancer Center, discusses the results of the JAVELIN Solid Tumor trial during an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

Treatment with icotinib more than doubled intracranial progression-free survival compared with whole brain irradiation combined with standard chemotherapy.

Findings from an efficacy update of patients participating in a study in the CheckMate series revealed that first-line nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated activity in advanced non–small cell lung cancer, and the addition of ipilimumab (Yervoy) resulted in enhanced activity, specifically in prolonged progression-free survival and higher objective response rates.

Treatment with first-line avelumab yielded promising clinical benefit and durable antitumor activity in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Joshua Roth, PhD, assistant member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, discusses the rationale behind the development of a novel risk-prediction algorithm in the context of screening patients for lung cancer. He discussed this during an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

Javier Zulueta, MD, head of the Pneumology Department, co-director, Lung Cancer Area, Clinica Universidad de Navarra, discusses the LuCED test, a non-invasive tool used to detect early stage lung cancer, during an interview at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

While treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) significantly improved overall survival over docetaxel in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer in the CheckMate-057 trial, an analysis of deaths occurring within 3 months of initiation of therapy showed numerically more deaths in the nivolumab arm.

Despite these successes, driver mutations have been identified in only a minority of cases and patients with other types of lung cancer, such as squamous cell carcinoma and small-cell lung cancer, do not currently benefit from targeted therapies.

Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Thoracic Oncology at Moffit Cancer Center, discusses immunotherapies that are emerging in the field of lung cancer.

Mohammad Jahanzeb, MD, professor of Clinical Medicine, Hematology/Oncology, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, discusses the challenges researchers must overcome in patients with non-driver adenocarcinoma.

Lowell L. Hart, MD, scientific director of Research at Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, and associate professor of Internal Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine, discusses the recent advances in the area of ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer.

While resistance to EGFR-targeted therapies in non–small cell lung cancer presents a major challenge, there is a silver lining.

Lung cancer alone accounts for 26.5% of all cancer-related mortalities in the United States, which is more than any other malignancy. Despite increased awareness that smoking is an important risk factor for lung cancer, which has reduced the number of smokers in the U.S., nearly a quarter of a million new diagnoses are expected in 2016.

Raymond U. Osarogiagbon, MD, FACP, Boston Baskin Cancer Foundation, Baptist Memorial Medical Group, discusses treating patients with lung cancer that have the potential to be cured.

Edgardo S. Santos, MD, medical oncology, internal medicine, Boca Raton Regional Hospital, discusses exciting advancements in the field of lung cancer. Santos shared this insight during the 2016 OncLive State of the Science Summit on Lung Cancer.

Treatment in lung cancer continues to evolve at a rapid pace with the arrival of a set of efficacious new agents and promising evidence-based data. According to Corey J. Langer, MD, a veritable avalanche of additional data is on the way.

Mark G. Kris, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses challenges associated with sequencing in the treatment of patients with lung cancer.

It has been about 18 months since the first immunotherapy checkpoint agent was approved for patients with non–small cell lung cancer. Now there are 3 monoclonal antibodies that target the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway on the market for the tumor type and the focus has shifted rapidly to establishng immunotherapy as a new frontline standard.

​Sonja Althammer, PhD, Team Leader Bioinformatics at Definiens, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, discusses a study looking to define a subgroup of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who respond well to treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab.

The expression of PD-L1 has been at the forefront of biomarker development for PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, but there is much uncertainty surrounding its use and other biomarkers are needed.

Sarah B. Goldberg, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the use of PD-L1 as a biomarker in treating patients with lung cancer.

Hossein Borghaei, DO, chief, Division of Thoracic Medical Oncology, director, Lung Cancer Risk Assessment, associate professor, Department of Hematology/Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses the management of slightly rarer side effects that patients with lung cancer can experience when treated with immunotherapy agents.