LUNG CANCER

Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, director, thoracic oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses results of the phase III clinical trial comparing alectinib (Alecensa) versus crizotinib (Xalkori) in first-line treatment for ALK-positive, advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Two oncologists offer rationale for both sides of the argument for/against the upfront use of newer tyrosine kinase inhibitors for patients with ALK-positive or EGFR-mutant NSCLC.

Treatment with nintedanib plus pemetrexed and cisplatin improved progression-free survival (PFS) in the frontline setting by 3.7 months for chemotherapy-naive patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Second-generation ALK inhibitor alectinib (Alecensa) demonstrated a 15-month improvement in progression-free survival compared with crizotinib (Xalkori), the first-generation ALK inhibitor and standard of care, in patients with&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer.

It&rsquo;s been a busy month at the FDA. Here&rsquo;s a look back at all the news in the oncology field to come out of the FDA during the month of May.

Updates to the NCCN guidelines for the management of advanced NSCLC stress the importance of multiplexed biomarker testing at diagnosis to aid in the selection of appropriate first-line and subsequent lines of therapy.

Treatment of EGFR Mutant Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Ceritinib (Zykadia) has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with <em>ALK</em>-positive, metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer.

NSCLC with Multiple Sites of Metastasis and No Driver Mutation

Metastatic Lung Adenocarcinoma Without a Driver Mutation

Anna Farago, MD, PhD, assistant, medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses challenges in treating small cell lung cancer.

Durvalumab (Imfinzi) showed a modest but encouraging clinical benefit in patients with <em>EGFR</em>-mutant or <em>ALK</em>-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer with high tumor PD-L1 expression of &ge;25% in the third-line setting or beyond.