Today’s post is about lung cancer, specifically non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). For the last 2 weeks, I have been immersed in the writing of a feature-length article on the topic: new developments in the treatment of NSCLC, all of which were presented at the 2012 American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting last month. In addition to highlighting the clinical details of select presentations in this niche, the article, which will be published on ChemotherapyAdvisor.com on July 5th, offers perspective from me and from Dr. Mark A. Socinski, an internationally-renowned expert in the treatment of NSCLC. Although today’s blog post will list and briefly describe the contents of the article, I highly encourage you to stop by ChemotherapyAdvisor.com on, or after, July 5th and give it a full read.
This feature article, entitled “NSCLC Highly Represented at ASCO 2012: A review article with commentary from Dr. Mark A. Socinski,” launches off with recent statistics on the deadliest cancer type in the United States: lung cancer. Although afflicting only a subset of lung cancer patients, NSCLC is, nonetheless, equally important, and accordingly, was very well-represented in presentations at ASCO 2012.
For my first abstract selection in this article, I went with a presentation of the important SELECT trial, a randomized phase 3 study of docetaxel or pemetrexed with or without cetuximab in recurrent or progressive NSCLC. In this abstract, Dr Edward S. Kim and his colleagues from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, investigated whether the addition of cetuximab to standard chemotherapy improved progression-free survival in patients with recurrent or progressive NSCLC after failure of platinum-based therapy.
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In another abstract entitled “LUX-lung 3: A randomized, open-label, phase III study of afatinib versus pemetrexed and cisplatin as first-line treatment for patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the lung harboring EGFR-activating mutations,” the authors described the largest prospective trial to date of EGFR mutation-positive lung cancer, the first study using pemetrexed/cisplatin as a comparator.
Finally, I discussed a study focused on treatment of the frailest, eldest patients with NSCLC entitled “Weekly nab-paclitaxel in combination with carboplatin as first-line therapy in elderly patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC),” which was presented at ASCO 2012 by lead author Mark A. Socinski, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Pavilion, Pittsburgh, PA. This study provided an analysis of efficacy and safety of a phase 3 trial comparing nab-paclitaxel (albumin-bound paclitaxel particles) plus carboplatin to solvent-based paclitaxel plus carboplatin in patients with advanced NSCLC that are ≥70 and <70 years of age.
How will data from these presentations affect the way you treat your NSCLC patients?
Readers: We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below! If you have a case study or a more extended response to this subject, click here to submit an item for us to publish.
