Lung Cancer

The role of immunotherapy is emerging as an effective, and in some cases, dramatic treatment in the non-small cell lung cancer landscape.

Suresh Ramalingam, MD, professor, Emory School of Medicine, and chief, Medical Oncology, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University, discusses combinations with immunotherapy agents and chemotherapy being investigated as potential treatments for patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

With the approval of a dual checkpoint blockade treatment in melanoma, researchers hope to have similar success in a phase III trial that combines a PD-L1 inhibitor and CTLA-4 antibody in patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

Clinical trial findings have implications for expanding the use of genomic testing—and thereby potentially increasing treatment options—for the younger lung cancer population.

The European Commission has granted a conditional marketing authorization to osimertinib for patients with locally advanced or metastatic EGFR T790M mutation-positive non–small cell lung cancer, regardless of prior treatment with EGFR TKI.

After a rocky start, drugs that inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor pathway have evolved into a new treatment paradigm for patients with non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors harbor EGFR mutations.

Renato Martins, MD, discusses what questions still remain regarding PD-L1 as a biomarker, sequencing, and how nivolumab and pembrolizumab compare head-to-head in non–small cell lung cancer.

Chandra P. Belani, MD, discusses the impact of clinical trials examining atezolizumab and the role of PD-L1 as a predictive and prognostic biomarker for response to the agent in non–small celll lung cancer.

An emerging vaccine strategy, of TG4010 immunotherapy and first-line chemotherapy, that could target a potential new biomarker in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has successfully reached a phase III clinical trial, researchers noted.

A substantial—and potentially growing—proportion of patients with non–small cell lung cancer are people who never, or only rarely, smoked.

Silvia Formenti, MD, chair of Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College and radiation oncologist-in-chief at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYorkPresbyterian Hospital, discusses combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).