Dr. Santos on the Current Treatment Landscape in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Lung

Edgardo S. Santos, MD, FACP, clinical affiliate associate professor, Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, founding partner, Florida Precision Oncology, discusses the current treatment landscape for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

Squamous cell carcinoma is a very aggressive disease in lung cancer that is typically associated with heavy smoking, Santos begins. Typically, patients with squamous cell carcinoma has a more morbid condition, since this disease is generally central in the lung. Given the location of squamous cell carcinoma, the management of this disease can be more difficult, Santos expands.

Currently, the treatment landscape of squamous cell carcinoma is focused on immunotherapy, which can be administered as monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy, Santos notes. When a patient experiences disease progression following an immunotherapy-based regimen, either alone or in combination with chemotherapy, second-line treatment options are not as well defined, Santos expands.

In the second-line setting, clinical trials are still ongoing to attempt to identify optimal treatment strategies, Santos continues. Therapies currently recommended by the FDA in the second-line setting include gemcitabine or docetaxel alone, or docetaxel plus ramucirumab (Cyramza), Santos says. Notably, the combination of docetaxel plus ramucirumab previously demonstrated superiority to docetaxel alone in the phase 3 REVEL trial (NCT01168973) in patients with second-line non–small cell lung cancer, Santos concludes.