Lung Cancer

Balazs Halmos, MD, discusses new advancements in lung cancer that are projected for 2021.

The FDA has approved osimertinib (Tagrisso) for use as an adjuvant treatment following tumor resection in patients with non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors harbor EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutations, as detected by an FDA-approved test.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become another potential complication for patients with lung cancer, said Mark G. Kris, MD, who added that although the pandemic has disrupted patient care, it has yet to stunt scientific collaboration.

Durvalumab showed a promising survival boost in stage III non-small cell lung cancer, and the immunotherapy agent was not as toxic as some thought it would be.

A pharmacist provides an overview of new intravenous cancer therapies that were approved in 2020.

The oncology community has risen up as a unified front in the battle against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), launching pivotal research efforts to better understand the enemy and collecting data to develop effective therapeutics to fill the treatment arsenal.

Chemoimmunotherapy regimens are showing promise in the treatment of SCLC.

The FDA has granted a priority review designation to a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) for the frontline treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a PD-L1 expression of 50% or greater.

Afatinib (Gilotrif) was found to be effective when used in Asian and non-Asian patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with major uncommon and compound EGFR mutations, irrespective of ethnicity, according to results from a pooled analysis presented during the 2020 IASLC North America Conference on Lung Cancer.

The FDA has granted osimertinib (Tagrisso) a priority review designation to a supplemental new drug application for the adjuvant treatment of patients with early-stage EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following complete tumor resection with curative intent.

The FDA approved nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the frontline treatment of adults with unresectable, malignant, pleural mesothelioma (MPM), according to Bristol Myers Squibb, the manufacturer of the immunotherapy agents.

The paradigm of advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is now one that necessitates discussions regarding the use of combination chemoimmunotherapy, combination immunotherapy, and single-agent immunotherapy, explained Jonathan Dowell, MD.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pralsetinib (Gavreto) for the treatment of patients with metastatic, RET fusion-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Genentech, the co-manufacturer of the drug.

Small cell lung cancer is very sensitive to chemotherapy, but immunotherapy offers another line of treatment for when chemotherapy stops working.

The FDA has approved a generic form of pemetrexed for intravenous administration as a single-agent in patients with locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has not progressed following 4 cycles of first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.

Locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer traditionally had high relapse rates after initial treatment. Now durvalumab may bring better survival rates to these patients.

The FDA has approved Guardant360® CDx for comprehensive genomic profiling in patients with any solid malignant cancer.

When it comes to immunotherapy-related adverse events, patients with lung cancer tend to have higher rates of pneumonitis than other cancer types, one nurse explains.

Parameters such as driver alterations, alternative methods for molecular testing, and immunotherapy-related biomarkers are gaining importance in lung cancer.

Lurbinectedin (Zepzelca) was added to the Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) on July 7, 2020 for the treatment of patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to a press release from Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Veterans with newly diagnosed lung cancer who had mental health disorders tended to have better cancer outcomes if they participated in mental health treatment.

Fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) could provide patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who harbor HER2 exon 20 insertion mutations and high HER2 expression a more specific and less toxic treatment compared with platinum doublet chemotherapy. However, the jury is still out on whether the agent will be pursued as an alternative frontline therapy and in both patient subsets.

The combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus carboplatin/etoposide continued to demonstrate an improvement in overall survival (OS) versus chemotherapy alone as a frontline treatment for patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), regardless of PD-L1 and blood tumor mutational burden (bTMB) status.

The FDA has approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to treat adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic solid tumors that are tissue tumor mutational burden–high (≥10 mutations/megabase) and have progressed following prior therapy and who have no satisfactory alternative treatment options.