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10 important updates for Lung Cancer Awareness Month
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Lung Cancer Awareness Month — observed every November — is intended to educate the public about the potential causes and risk factors of the disease.
It also promotes the need for screening among eligible populations, and promotes the importance of research underway to identify more effective treatments.
In conjunction with Lung Cancer Awareness Month, HemOnc Today and Healio.com present 10 important updates in lung cancer diagnosis, treatment and prevention that may be relevant to your practice.
• Adults who consumed large amounts of dietary fiber and yogurt demonstrated decreased risk for lung cancer, regardless of other risk factors. Read more.
• Malignancies like lung cancer that kill a large number of Americans each year often receive considerably less research funding from disease-specific nonprofit organizations than less deadly cancers. Read more.
• Osimertinib (Tagrisso, AstraZeneca) significantly extended OS compared with standard epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors as front-line treatment for EGFR-mutated advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Read more.
• Radiation doses used for lung cancer screenings with low-dose CT scans exceeded recommendations at many facilities. However, institutions that followed protocols set by a lead radiologist or internal medical physicist used lower doses. Read more.
• A combination of nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol-Myers Squibb) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy, Bristol-Myers Squibb) significantly improved OS compared with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC. Read more.
• Atezolizumab (Tecentriq, Genentech) significantly prolonged OS compared with platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with newly diagnosed NSCLC whose tumors expressed high levels of PD-L1. Read more.
• First-line monotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) conferred a durable long-term OS benefit compared with chemotherapy for patients with metastatic, PD-L1-expressing NSCLC. Read more.
• Tumor mutational burden showed limited utility as a biomarker for response to pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy or placebo plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment for metastatic, nonsquamous NSCLC. Read more.
• Use of hormone replacement therapy may increase risk for lung cancer as a second primary malignancy among patients with breast cancer who smoke. Read more.
• Palliative care appeared associated with survival benefits among patients with advanced lung cancer. Read more.