European Lung Cancer Congress

Marina Chiara Garassino, MD, medical consultant in the Medical Oncology Division, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, discusses the quality of life findings from the FLAURA study in non–small cell lung cancer.

In findings consistent with earlier results on efficacy and adverse events reported for the phase III ALEX trial, investigators announced superior patient-reported outcomes for the next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor alectinib versus the standard of care TKI inhibitor crizotinib in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer.

The frontline regimen of atezolizumab (Tecentriq), bevacizumab (Avastin), carboplatin, and paclitaxel has emerged as a potential new standard of care for the treatment of patients with metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC.

Anti PD-L1 immunotherapy with atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was strongly superior to docetaxel in locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, according to 3-year survival findings from the phase II POPLAR study.

Paul Baas, MD, professor, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses the future of treatment in mesothelioma.

​Keith Kerr, BSc, MB, ChB, FRCPath, FRCPE, of the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, discusses PD-L1 immunohistochemistry in lung cancer.

Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and pathology, University of Colorado Cancer Center, CEO, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), discusses necitumumab for first-line treatment of advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Nicola Normanno, MD, chief of the Cell Biology and Biotherapy Unit, INT-Fondazione Pascale, Naples, Italy, discusses the benefit of plasma genotyping to predict response to EGFR-targeted therapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Plasma-based genetic testing can effectively be used to determine whether a tissue biopsy is necessary for EGFR mutation analysis in patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

Raffaele Califano, MD, consultant in medical oncology at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospital of South Manchester, discuses the potential for immunotherapy in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Efficacy and safety remained strong 2 years following treatment with nivolumab for patients with advanced, refractory, squamous non-small–cell lung cancer, with an indication that cytokine levels could predict long-term outcomes.

Plasma genotyping can, in most cases, identify T790M-positivity in non-small cell lung cancer, which gives patients the option of receiving the targeted therapy osimertinib without the need for a tumor biopsy, according Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD.

The first analysis of a trial investigating durvalumab in combination with gefitinib (Iressa) showed encouraging anti-tumor activity and tolerability in patients with non–small cell lung cancer and EGFR mutations that were tyrosine-kinase inhibitor-naïve.

Luis Paz-Ares, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre in Madrid, Spain, discusses a subgroup analysis of patients with EGFR-expressing tumors from the SQUIRE trial, a phase III study of gemcitabine–cisplatin plus necitumumab versus gemcitabine–cisplatin alone as first-line treatment for patients with stage IV squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Suresh Ramalingam, MD, professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory School of Medicine and deputy director of Winship Cancer Institute, discusses first-line treatment with single-agent osimertinib in patients with EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Adding necitumumab to conventional chemotherapy improved outcomes in patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer in the phase III SQUIRE trial, but the greatest benefit was derived by patients with EGFR-expressing tumors.

The first report of results from a phase Ib clinical trial evaluating CRS-207, a live, attenuated, double-deleted Listeria monocytogenes vaccine, in combination with pemetrexed and cisplatin, demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

A new generation of EGFR-targeted TKIs are poised to displace traditional agents as frontline therapies for patients with lung cancer.

John Haanen, MD PhD, epartment of Medical Oncology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, discussed the role of PD-L1 as a biomarker in lung cancer.

First-line treatment with single-agent osimertinib (Tagrisso) induced a response rate of 77% in patients with EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer.

Thierry Jahan, MD, professor of medicine at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Francisco, discusses CRS-20, a live, attenuated Listeria monocytogenes bacterium which is being investigated with chemotherapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had ceased to respond to EGFR TKI therapy demonstrated a rapid and robust response to the investigational agent BI-1482694 (HM61713).