Lung Cancer

Edgardo Santos, MD, FACP, discusses advances made with immunotherapy regimens in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer and areas of active investigation.

Daniel Lin, MD, MS, discusses pivotal trials examining important targeted agents for patients with cholangiocarcinoma and the importance of comprehensive genomic testing to guide treatment decisions.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to poziotinib for use in previously treated patients with HER2 exon 20 mutations.

The FDA has approved the VENTANA ALK CDx assay as a companion diagnostic to identify patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer who are eligible to receive treatment with lorlatinib.

Poziotinib, when given at a daily dose of 16 mg, was found to demonstrate clinically meaningful activity when used in treatment-naïve patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who harbor EGFR exon 20 mutations.

The FDA expanded the indication for lorlatinib to include the front-line treatment of patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer.

The FDA has approved the PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, developed by Agilent Technologies Inc, for expanded use in patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

Immunotherapy continues to improve upon the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and there are more exciting advancements on the horizon.

The FDA approved single-agent frontline cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a PD-L1 expression of 50% or greater.

The FDA has granted priority review to sotorasib for the treatment of patients with KRAS G12C–mutated locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, after at least 1 previous systemic therapy.

The FDA has approved trilaciclib to reduce the frequency of chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression in adults receiving certain types of chemotherapy for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.

“We should never be complacent; we should never be skeptical,” said Lilenbaum. “We need to continue to pursue new treatments, and if nothing else, the past 2 decades are a testament to how we can actually make a difference in the natural history of the disease by appropriate interventions.”

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) combined with ipilimumab (Yervoy) did not improve survival and had higher rates of toxicity compared with pembrolizumab monotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had a PD-L1 tumor proportion score (TPS) of 50% or greater, and did not harbor EGFR or ALK aberrations.

Health-related quality of life was maintained for patients with EGFR-positive non–small cell lung cancer who received treatment with adjuvant osimertinib.

The FDA has granted tepotinib (Tepmetko) accelerated approval for the treatment of adults with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with MET exon 14-skipping alterations, according to the FDA.

Although survivors and patients with lung cancer felt that they were involved in the treatment decision-making process, nearly half of them reported that they knew what their treatment options were before making a decision, according to results from a study presented at the 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer Singapore.

A virtual prehabilitaiton program improved patient outcomes before they underwent lung cancer surgery.

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who experience immune-related adverse events (irAEs) may have better survival outcomes than those without irAEs.

Although lung-sparing lung nodule resection in the form of lesser resection is available to some patients with lung cancer, it is critical to tailor surgical interventions based on pathologic assessment results, said Henning Gaissert, MD, who added that utilizing a multimodal approach to treatment can help alleviate some of the burden of treatment selection.

The radiographic and pathologic responses that have been seen with checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer bodes well for the use of neoadjuvant therapy. However, the relationship between response and long-term outcomes, specifically with regard to overall survival, will have to be teased out before they become standard practice, explained David Spigel, MD.

Molecular testing is a critical component of the treatment selection process in lung cancer, as a host of effective drugs have since been developed to target alterations such as ALK, ROS1, and RET, according to Yujie Zhao, MD, PhD, who added that the integration of RNA-based sequencing into these strategies could potentially provide further benefit to patients.

Results of confirmatory trials showed that the drug did not meet its primary endpoints for patients with small cell lung cancer.

Balazs Halmos, MD, discusses new advancements in lung cancer that are projected for 2021.

The FDA has approved osimertinib (Tagrisso) for use as an adjuvant treatment following tumor resection in patients with non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors harbor EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutations, as detected by an FDA-approved test.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become another potential complication for patients with lung cancer, said Mark G. Kris, MD, who added that although the pandemic has disrupted patient care, it has yet to stunt scientific collaboration.

Durvalumab showed a promising survival boost in stage III non-small cell lung cancer, and the immunotherapy agent was not as toxic as some thought it would be.

A pharmacist provides an overview of new intravenous cancer therapies that were approved in 2020.

The oncology community has risen up as a unified front in the battle against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), launching pivotal research efforts to better understand the enemy and collecting data to develop effective therapeutics to fill the treatment arsenal.

Chemoimmunotherapy regimens are showing promise in the treatment of SCLC.

The FDA has granted a priority review designation to a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) for the frontline treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a PD-L1 expression of 50% or greater.