Biomarker-Driven Lung Cancer

A sudden surge in the cases of COVID-19 due to pandemic, along with efforts to contain it, has led to multiple challenges that no country has experienced in the last several decades. The global pandemic from COVID-19 poses a unique set of challenges not only for patients with cancer who need their treatment, but also for caregivers, oncologists, and the overall care team.

In a&nbsp;Targeted Oncology case-based peer perspectives live discussion, Heather A. Wakelee, MD, discussed treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment options for a real-world Hispanic patient with EGFR-mutant non&ndash;small cell lung cancer.<br /> &nbsp;

A 62-Year-Old Woman With Metastatic BRAF V600E-Mutated NSCLC

A 63-Year-Old Woman With Metastatic EGFR-Mutated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Kashyap Patel, MD, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of new precautions in his practice as the number of COVID-19 infected persons rises in the state.<br /> &nbsp;

Oncologists have unanswered questions about how to deal with resistance mechanisms for multikinase inhibitors and selective RET inhibitors, and how efficacy is impacted when they combine 2 or more such drugs into a treatment regimen for RET-positive lung cancer. In a paper, researchers led by Vivek Subbiah, et al review the existing data.

Lung Cancer

In response to&nbsp;frequent and substantial changes in the treatment of non&ndash;small cell lung cancer in the frontline set&shy;ting, the American Society of Clinical Oncology has partially updated its 2017 guide&shy;line for the treatment of patients with stage IV disease without driver mutations.

Patients harboring IDH1/2 muta&shy;tions may receive benefit by the use of PARP inhibitors, with investigators initi&shy;ating clinical trials in patients across multiple different tumor types to determine the efficacy of this strategy.

Treatment with pembrolizumab demonstrated antitumor activity along with tolerable toxicity in patients with 4 different rare and hard-to-treat malignancies, according to results from a phase II study led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers and published in the&nbsp;Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

Benjamin P. Levy, MD, discusses biomarkers that have led to the development therapies with high response rates in lung cancer.

The addition of tremelimumab to frontline durvalumab and the standard of care, platinum-based chemotherapy, did not demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in overall survival in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, missing the co-primary end point of the phase III CASPIAN trial, according to high-level results from the final analysis of the trial.

To help assess the advances the United States has made in decreasing cancer-related deaths, a collective of public health bodies found that monitoring trends in cancer risk, screening test use, and mortality is informative. A report published in&nbsp;<em>Cancer</em>&nbsp;shows that progress has been made in recent years, but there is more work to be&nbsp;<a>done.</a>

From 2001 to 2017, the cancer death rates continued to decline in the United States, and these decreases were observed in all major racial and ethnic groups, as well as in males, females, adolescents, young adults, and children. However, the rates of cancer incidence for all cancers slightly increased in females from 2012 to 2016, according to the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, which was published in&nbsp;Cancer.^&nbsp;

Vemurafenib monotherapy is an effective treatment for patients with&nbsp;BRAF&nbsp;V600-mutated non&ndash;small cell lung cancer,&nbsp;according to results from the phase II AcSe vemurafenib trial&nbsp;II study published in the&nbsp;Annals of Oncology.

A post hoc analysis of the ALTER 0303 trial has found that anlotinib, compared with placebo, extended the time patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer had before brain metastases developed or existing brain lesions increased in size, reports a recent paper in The Oncologist.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Tony S. K. Mok, MD, BMSc, FRCPC, discussed the final progression-free survival data for frontline alectinib comparted with crizotinib as treatment of patients with advanced&nbsp;ALK-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer in the ALEX trial.

Pemetrexed-based chemotherapy regimens were more effective as treatment of patients with&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-rearranged non&ndash;<a>small</a>&nbsp;cell lung cancer compared with other regimens, according to a multicenter, retrospective study. This treatment also showed similar benefit for various&nbsp;<em>RET</em>&nbsp;fusion types, including&nbsp;<em>KIF5B-<a>RET&nbsp;</a></em>and non-<em>KIF5B-RET</em>&nbsp;fusions.

The FDA has accepted a Biologics License Application for MYL-1402O, a proposed biosimilar to bevacizumab, according to a press release from co-developers Biocon and Mylan. The BLA is seeking approval for the biosimilar as a treatment for multiple types of cancer and the FDA has set an action date goal of December 27, 2020, for a decision on the BLA.