Lung Cancer

Recent progress in lung cancer was a bright spot at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting. Several studies were presented that either are practice-changing or will likely lead to practice changes in the future.

The use of CT-guided radiofrequency ablation is well tolerated and effective among patients with inoperable stage IA non-small-cell lung cancer.

Use of post-operative radiotherapy was associated with better overall survival in patients with incompletely resected stage II/III non-small-cell lung cancer.

Large proportions of lung and colorectal cancer patients believe that surgery will cure their cancer, according to results of a new population-based study.

The combination of pemetrexed/cisplatin was superior to gemcitabine/cisplatin in non-squamous NSCLC patients negative for the thymidylate synthase enzyme.

A 39-year-old woman presents with dyspnea and cough. A bronchial mass in found. What is your diagnosis?

A 51-year-old man presents with a lung mass. What is your diagnosis?

Not surprisingly, this was a very popular topic. I’m not sure why the ASCO planners didn’t anticipate this, because I had to wait a few minutes outside the door to even get in. At one point, it was standing room only!

A 46-year-old woman presents with cough and dyspnea. A bronchial tumor is found and a biopsy is performed. What is your diagnosis?

Alectinib yielded good response rates and was very well tolerated in a phase II trial of patients with advanced, ALK-positive non–small-cell lung cancer.

Because treatment options for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) that progress on platinum-based chemotherapy are limited, researchers are looking for new treatments.

In this video, Dr. Paz-Ares discusses a phase III study that showed that nivolumab improved survival and response rates in previously treated patients with metastatic non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

A phase I study showed that transcriptional inhibitor PM01183 with doxorubicin induced responses in patients with small-cell lung cancer.

A phase III study (CheckMate 017) showed that nivolumab (Opdivo) was superior to docetaxel in patients previously treated for advanced or metastatic squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The platinum compound nedaplatin in combination with docetaxel improved outcomes over cisplatin and docetaxel in advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

Data from the LUX-Lung 8 trial showed afatinib outperformed erlotinib with regard to both progression-free and overall survival in squamous cell lung cancer.

A new agent, AZD9291, showed promising clinical activity and progression-free survival in a study of patients with advanced stage, EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC.

A treatment analysis for early NSCLC found that wedge resection, along with Cs131 brachytherapy, and stereotactic body radiation therapy are all strong options.

A prospective study found that a bronchial airway gene-expression classifier improved the diagnostic performance of bronchoscopy for lung cancer detection.

Genotyping of African Americans suggest that with regard to somatic driver mutations in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), black patients do not significantly differ from white patients, according to a new study.

A population-based study found some evidence that the use of statins is linked to reduced rates of cancer-specific mortality among lung cancer patients.

Patients with lung cancer are increasingly receiving targeted therapies that induce complete disease remissions, but they can also develop resistance to these drugs. New efforts are now underway to discover and develop new options for patients experiencing drug resistance.

Inhibition of PD-1 with pembrolizumab was well tolerated and showed promising survival results in a large phase I trial of patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Too many people are being screened, diagnosed, and treated for certain types of cancer, according to two cancer researchers.

Early-stage non–small-cell lung cancer patients over 70 years old derive a similar benefit as younger patients from adjuvant chemotherapy following surgical resection.

A 76-year-old man is found to have a right upper lobe mass. After further evaluation, a biopsy is performed. What is your diagnosis?

During routine chest imaging a 35-year-old woman is found to have a coin lesion in the right upper lobe. What is your diagnosis?

Though surgery is the standard treatment for early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer, a new study suggests that stereotactic body radiotherapy offers lower immediate mortality and toxicity.

In this interview we discuss the recent CMS decision to cover low-dose CT screening for lung cancer in patients who fit specific criteria.

Men with high midlife cardiorespiratory fitness have a lower incidence of lung and colorectal cancer; however, this association was not seen for prostate cancer.