Lung Cancer

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.

Recent research suggests that the presence of PD-L1–positive and CD8+ cells may be useful for predicting responses in patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have been treated with durvalumab.

A biologics license application (BLA) has been submitted for ABP-215, a biosimilar version of bevacizumab (Avastin), based on data from analytical, pharmacokinetic, clinical data, pharmacology, and toxicology data, according to a statement from Amgen and Allergan, the developers of the biosimilar.

Immunotherapy continues to revolutionize the field of non–small cell lung cancer, with researchers now focusing on the optimal use of immune agents in the frontline setting.

Hossein Borghaei, DO, discuss what lies ahead for immunotherapy in lung cancer, and what changes may be on the horizon for such agents as pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in the frontline setting.

Balazs Halmos, MD, director, Thoracic Oncology, director, Clinical Cancer Genomics, Montefiore Medical Center, discusses the prevalence of MET mutations in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

H. Jack West, MD, a thoracic oncologist of Swedish Cancer Institute at Swedish Medical Center, discusses factors he takes into consideration for EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors in patients who have EGFR-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).