On Feb 22nd, 6:30 PM Eastern/3:30 PM Pacific, GRACE and LUNGevity Foundation will be broadcasting a live panel discussion from Santa Monica, where the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer will be kicking off its12th Annual Targeted Therapies of the Treatment of Lung Cancer Meeting.  Host Dr. Jack West will be joined by four great luminaries from different centers of excellence and with different perspectives on the timely issue in lung cancer of molecular testing in advanced n… more

One of the lung cancer surgeons I work closely with sent me and a couple of the radiation oncologists at my center a report that just came out from a group in Kyoto highlighting that they have a seen a notable proportion of their patients develop late recurrences, even well beyond five years, among their patients who underwent stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for node-negative early stage NSCLC many years earlier (see Dr. Loiselle's great summary of SBRT for a review of the topic).  M… more

SBRT stands for Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy, a radiation therapy approach which delivers high dose radiation to a target within the body, in either a single treatment session or up to  approximately five treatment sessions (each session is typically referred to as a "fraction").

The first term in the acronym, "stereotactic" refers to precise three dimensional localization of a tumor target.  The incorporation of the second term in the acronym, "body," is of historical derivation. … more

A few months ago, I had a patient in my clinic who is a lifelong never-smoker with an adenocarcinoma.  I had her tumor checked for molecular markers, which revealed that she had both an activating EGFR mutation (exon 19 deletion) and a T790M mutation associated with resistance (see Dr. Pennell's excellent summary for an introduction to EGFR mutations).   Not sure what to expect from an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor like Tarceva (erlotinib), I started her on chemo first, which she responded to… more

Drs. Bob Doebele, Ross Camidge, and their colleagues at the University of Colorado just published an interesting and clinically relevant paper in Clinical Cancer Research that looked in detail at the mechanisms of resistance in ALK rearrangement positive patients to the ALK inhibitor XALKORI (crizotinib).   Evaluating 14 patients with a known ALK rearrangement who were resistant to XALKORI, either from first treatment (in the case of two patients), or after a period of response (for the other 1… more

   A few days ago, I was responding in the discussion forum, getting very critical of the recommendation in favor of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) (e.g., Gamma Knife, Cyber Knife) for people with many brain lesions, when the evidence would say that whole brain radiation (WBR) is a more appropriate choice.  I suggested that this was a zealous recommendation by ill-informed and manipulated patients and/or radiation oncologists who'd stand to profit from this expensive procedure.  Dr. Lo… more

GRACE has historically done a poor job of capitalizing on the good will and range of talents available among the many people who support what we do and want to help in some way.  In many ways, this has been my fault for being too preoccupied with the current needs of the website and community to invest the time to initiate meaningful opportunities to volunteer.  But as we've seen from the collective intelligence and dedication of our limited experience like having the moderators take a more a… more

Since two-thirds of breast cancer is ER/PR-positive, research on new or improved therapies that target hormone receptors is ongoing. A couple of trials recently presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) attempt to improve on currently available therapies for women with ER-positive, metastatic breast cancer.

The first trial is one of the more exciting trials presented this year at SABCS, as it improves hormonal therapy for heavily pretreated patients (patients who have recei… more

Thanks (and congratulations) to GRACE member Craig, who highlighted the just-published report that is the first to characterize the frequency and clinical features of the newly identified ROS1 rearrangement, identified in 2007, similar in structure to an ALK rearrangement, and found to also be responsive in preclinical cell lines to ALK inhibitor therapy.  Craig has a special perspective on this new target, since a ROS1 rearrangement was detected in his tumor.   Importantly, very early but qui… more

Several weeks ago we did a webinar, co-sponsored with LUNGevity Foundation, with Dr. Mark Millard, pulmonologist at Baylor University in Dallas, TX, who provided a brief summary of tobacco's uptake in the US and worldwide, then covered the controversy over its association with lung cancer.   These are the subject of the first podcast covering his webinar, and part two will cover current approaches to smoking cessation.

Here's the audio and video versions of the podcast, as well as the trans… more