Cancer Care in the Canadian System, by Dr. Laskin

   Is the grass greener?
   I have noticed that a number of the participants on this site are Canadians, which is only one reason I always keep my extra Canadian “u”s in my posts. There have been a few issues that have come up that might be different on the other side of the border, […]

Second Line Treatment for NSCLC: Choosing Among Several Options

   Member Sandra recently asked the question that several other people have asked in one form or another: how do we choose among the treatment options for second line therapy in NSCLC.   I’ve covered in several posts and a huge number of responses in the Q&A Forum the leading options we generally consider for second line […]

Zactima (Vandetanib) in SCLC: An Argument Against Maintenance Therapy

   There’s been several discussions about the potential value of maintenance therapy after the initial chemotherapy for SCLC; I’ve discussed this subject in a prior post, in which I focused on chemo (prior post here) — while the results haven’t been strong enough to lead to a change in standard practice, at least one trial […]

Is Surgery Ever an Option for Small Cell Lung Cancer? - by Dr. Laskin

   Dr. Laskin has appreciated the warm welcome.  Not only have you not scared her off, she’s written her first post for us. 
   By the way, it’s misleading to have my name and picture and “about the author” next to these posts by our new faculty — the software upgrade will fix this.  Here’s her […]

XL647: Novel Agent As An Alternative or Follow-up After Tarceva

   In the Q&A forums recently, members Jianming and Neil introduced us to the  novel agent XL647, in clinical trials now, but I figured it was worth me collecting more background and providing a more thorough background.  XL647 is an oral small molecular that inhibits multiple tyrosine kinases, receptors on cells that trigger cascades of activity […]

An Example of Successful Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs): Tarceva’s Effect on Lung Cancer Symptoms

    One of the successful examples of incorporating patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures into an important clinical trial was in the NCI-Canada study BR.21 (abstract here).  This study assigned patients to either tarceva or placebo in a 2:1 randomization to the active drug:

(Click on image to enlarge)
   This study showed a 9% response rate and an improvement […]

Pralatrexate: Novel Chemotherapy Being Tested in Lung Cancer

   In my last post I described a new study that will be randomizing previously treated advanced NSCLC patients with a current or prior smoking history to receive either tarceva or a new chemotherapy called pralatrexate.  Now it’s time to provide a little background on this new agent.
   The name pralatrexate may not roll off […]

New Trial for Smokers: Novel Chemo Agent Pralatrexate Targeting Potential Weakness for Tarceva

  I’ve described in a prior post and many of my comments here how tarceva and iressa, oral targeted therapies against EGFR, have been pretty consistently impressive in never-smokers.  Not infallibly great, but these agents have shown high response rates in the 25-50% range for never-smokers, and have also been pretty favorable for remote and […]

Do Patient Symptoms Correlate with Response and Survival?

   Intuitively, you’d think that people who are doing worse while getting treated for lung cancer are not going to do as well as people who have improvement in their symptoms after treatment starts.  But how much do patient symptoms count in our current medical system for deciding whether a treatment is working or not, […]

My Top 10 List of Lung Cancer Developments for 2007

  I think I’m a few days late for the obligatory top 10 list for the year, applied to everything.  But you probably care about the top 10 for lung cancer, so here’s my list of the biggest highlights of the year.  There are certainly other appealing drugs and treatments out there, but here’s what […]