Lung Cancer / Mesothelioma
Most of the focus on predicting response to EGFR inhibitors has been on identifing molecular markers that are associated with major response to this kind of treatment. But we know that there is a group of patients who get no benefit from these expensive drugs, and in these patients, EGFR inhibitors would just lead […]
8 CommentsThere is still plenty of active debate about whether patients with stage III NSCLC who have mediastinal lymph nodes, the ones in the middle of the chest between the lungs but on the same side as the main tumor, should receive surgery in some circumstances or not. There was a trial done in the […]
0 CommentsHistorically, surgery for lung cancer has been through an open thoracotomy (thorax = chest; otomy = cutting/slicing), which involves a long incision around the side of the chest, removal of ribs, and spreading of the remaining ribs to get a good view of the area of the operation. Even with the most skilled surgeons, it’s a procedure […]
0 CommentsIn most of the history of lung cancer management, we have been “lumpers” rather than “splitters”, tossing together many different kinds of lung cancer together and presuming that they all respond similarly and should be treated similarly. After decades of primarily focusing just on whether a lung cancer was SCLC or NSCLC, with drugs like avastin, it’s […]
0 CommentsHistorically, the main task of pathologists in lung cancer has been to divide them into small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Beyond that, there is now more of an emphasis than there used to be on trying to clarify whether a NSCLC tumor is a squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, large cell, […]
7 CommentsBetween 7 and 15% of patients with lung cancer develop a malignant pleural effusion (MPE), a fluid collection outside of the lung in the chest cavity. Very often, if it develops, it recurs frequently. This is typically associated with shortness of breath, also know as dyspnea, so we want to try to manage these […]
7 CommentsPleural effusions related to lung cancer are quite common, so it’s time that I discussed this issue. First, a pleural effusion is fluid outside of the lung, and it tends to follow gravity and pool at the bottom (base) of the lung, primarily along the back. Here’s how it appears on a chest x-ray, […]
30 CommentsA couple of weeks ago I wrote a post announcing a series of interviews I did with other members of the faculty at a large conference on Lung and Head/Neck Cancers in Chicago back in October, 2006. Those were developed into a program collection called “Oncology Unplugged” that is in MP3 format for ITunes, and I […]
0 CommentsI recently wrote a post about combining chemo and radiation after surgery for unsuspected stage IIIA N2 node-positive NSCLC (if discovered prior to surgery, it is more common to administer chemo and/or radiation before surgery). In the comments that followed it, Carlos brought to my attention a study that I neglected to mention a […]
0 CommentsAdjuvant chemo has become increasingly established as having a survival advantage, at least for the general population of stage II and IIIA patients, and potentially for some with earlier stage disease (see adjuvant chemo post). However, post-operative radiation therapy, or PORT, does not have an established role. While historically there has not a clear advantage from […]
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