This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Eight important updates in lung cancer
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Lung Cancer Awareness Month — observed in November — is intended to educate the public about lung cancer causes and risk factors, as well as the need for screening among eligible patient populations.
It also promotes the importance of research underway to identify more effective treatments.
In conjunction with Lung Cancer Awareness Month, HemOnc Today and Healio.com present eight important updates in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment that may be relevant to your practice.
1. The addition of atezolizumab (Tecentriq, Genentech) to first-line treatment with bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) and chemotherapy significantly prolonged PFS among individuals with advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer. Read more.
2. First-line treatment with osimertinib (Tagrisso, AstraZeneca) prolonged PFS compared with standard epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors among patients with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer, according to results of the double-blind, phase 3 FLAURA study. Read more.
3. The FDA approved alectinib (Alecensa; Genentech/Roche) for the first-line treatment of patients with ALK-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, as detected by an FDA-approved test. Read more.
4. Nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol-Myers Squibb) with or without ipilimumab (Yervoy, Bristol-Myers Squibb) demonstrated greater efficacy among patients with small cell lung cancer who had a high mutation burden, according to results of an exploratory analysis from CheckMate 032. Read more.
5. First-line pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) significantly improved median OS compared with chemotherapy among patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer and high PD-L1 expression, according to long-term follow-up of KEYNOTE-024. Read more.
6. Receipt of chemotherapy based on mRNA BRCA1 expression level failed to improve survival among node-positive patients with stage II and stage III non-small cell lung cancer. Read more.
7. Consolidative stereotactic ablative radiotherapy before maintenance chemotherapy nearly tripled PFS among patients with limited metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. Read more.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation appeared underused among patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer. Read more.