Biomarker-Driven Lung Cancer

Across the fields of renal cell carcinoma, bladder cancer, and prostate cancer, immunotherapy agents are moving through the pipeline and impacting patient outcomes—some quicker than others.

Atezolizumab proves to be non-toxic and shows major survival advantage in patients with metastatic urothelial bladder cancer.

While the United States Preventative Services Task Force has taken a stand against routine prostate-specific antigen screening for prostate cancer, updated findings from the landmark Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovary screening trial could flip opinions.

Deciding the sequencing order of therapies for patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a challenge, as new information on next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) comes to light, says Robert Doebele, MD, PhD. Testing for ALK translocations can help to determine which therapies NSCLC patients should be receiving, but questions regarding the sequencing of ALK inhibitors still remain.

Review of the currently available and approved therapeutic agents for the management of metastatic squamous cell NSCLC and clinical trials focusing on targeted therapy.

Advances in the treatment of cancer have been possible due to the use of agents that target genomic mutations involving oncogenic signaling and immune regulatory pathways. These advances have resulted in major paradigm shifts in our clinical approach to the patient with metastatic cancer.

Melissa Johnson, MD, associate director, Lung Cancer Research, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the use of natural language processing in the diagnosis of lung cancer.

While PD-L1 has been perceived as an important biomarker in the realm of lung cancer, Keith Kerr, BSc, MB, ChB, FRCPath, FRCPE, says it still has a long way to go.

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) is the world's leading member-driven organization dedicated to professionals working in the field of cancer immunotherapy. A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, SITC was established in 1984 to advance the science, development, and application of tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy. SITC aims to make cancer immunotherapy a standard of care and the word "cure" a reality.

Patients with nonfunctioning neuroendocrine tumors of gastrointestinal or lung origin continued to live longer when treated with the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor everolimus than with placebo, ongoing follow-up in a randomized trial showed.

Heather A. Wakelee, MD, discusses a study utilizing liquid biopsies in patients with non-small cell lung cancer who harbor EGFR mutations.

Frontline treatment with alectinib reduced the risk of progression or death by 66% compared with crizotinib for patients with advanced or recurrent ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer.

Plasma and urine tests are often a reliable method for the detection of the T790M mutation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with acquired resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), according to an oral presentation given Monday at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Neratinib, an experimental TKI being developed for breast cancer, achieved a 36% clinical benefit rate in a phase II trial, according to a poster presented June 5, 2016 at the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) osimertinib (Tagrisso) demonstrated promising activity in a phase I study of heavily pretreated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and leptomeningeal disease who harbor activating EGFR mutations.

Howard L. (Jack) West, MD, medical oncologist, director, Thoracic Oncology Program, Swedish Cancer Institute, discusses emerging agents on the horizon for patients with T790M-mutant patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Combination therapy dabrafenib and trametinib showed positive outcomes in patients with BRAF V600E-mutant NSCLC, according to phase II trial data presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Updated findings from the phase III CheckMate-057 and -017 trials showed sustained improvements in overall survival (OS) data of nivolumab (Opdivo) treatment in pretreated patients with nonsquamous or squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

A faculty of experts presented a compelling discussion on the state of the art for EGFR-targeted TKIs during the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The number of brain metastases does not have an impact on overall survival (OS) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with an EGFR mutation or ALK rearrangement, Cleveland Clinic investigators discovered.

The investigational cancer vaccine CRS-207 may improve response and survival when given with chemotherapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) according to results of a phase Ib trial.

Walter Weder, MD, University Hospital, Division of Thoracic Surgery, discusses challenges in mesothelioma treatment and why specialized centers are best for the patient.

Clinical trials studying a biomarker-based treatment showed substantially better results than non-personalized treatment methods in a meta-analysis that examined 13,203 patients from phase I trials.

Significant strides have been made in developing cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 inhibitors to treat estrogen receptor (ER)‒positive breast cancer.

Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) and CDK6 inhibitors are a promising class of anticancer agents that may present effective alternatives to standard therapy for women with advanced, refractory, or relapsed hormone receptor (HR)‒positive breast cancer.