Lung Cancer

Dr Fred Hirsch talks to ecancer at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago about the need for molecular testing in advanced non small cell lung cancer and advancements in treatment with crizotinib.

Dr Dirk Dr Ruysscher talks with ecancer at EMCTO 2013 in Lugano, Switzerland about chemotherapy with concurrent radiotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer. Unfortunately, only 40% of patients are able to receive concurrent radiotherapy because of the high toxicity. Patients that are able to receive this treatment have already received a poor prognosis and long-term studies are unavailable due to outcomes. Dr De Ruysscher explains current research on how to reduce toxicity and increase long-term survival.

Dr Ramalingam gives a comment at ASCO 2013 on two papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirming crizotinib as superior to chemotherapy for the treatment of previously treated, advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ALK rearrangement.

Dr Laura Soucek talks to ecancer at the 2013 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington DC about the inhibition of the Myc pathway in mouse models. The work conducted by the Mouse Models of Cancer Therapy group at the VHIO, led by Dr Laura Soucek, shows that Myc can be controlled and inhibited through a mutant called Omomyc that hijacks Myc and prevents it from acting. In the study, multiple lung tumours were induced in the mouse (up to 200 tumours in each individual) and Myc inhibition episodes were achieved by activating Omomyc expression for 4-weeks, followed by 4-week rest periods. This therapy - known as metronomic therapy - was maintained for more than a year, regularly checking tumour progress in each mouse.

Dr Suzanne Topalian talks to ecancer at the ASCO 2013 Annual Meeting about anti-PD1 results of a phase I study which looked at nivolumab to inhibit the immune checkpoint, PD1. The study reported substantial responses in lung cancer and melanoma.