Expanding Treatment in The Neoadjuvant Setting

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the standard treatment for patients with stage III lung cancer, but new studies show promise for the combination of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in these patients, before surgery.

At the 14^th Annual New York Lung Cancers Symposium OncLive^®, a sister publication to Oncology Nursing News^®, had the chance to speak with Ashish Saxena, MD, PhD, medical oncologist at Weil Cornell Medicine, on this new avenue for treatment and what the standard treatment is for patients with stage III lung cancer.

TRANSCRIPTION

Generally, for patients with stage III disease, we typically do neoadjuvant chemotherapy as a standard treatment. Trials are going on, including one that we are doing at our institution of neoadjuvant immunotherapy to get a similar response in the tumor before surgery, and then to see if that translates into better overall survival for the patient. Generally, we decide treatment based on the stages and for stage three we typically do neoadjuvant therapy.