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 non-small cell lung cancer:

(click on image to enlarge)

Over the course of an approximately 90 minute program, we’ll alternate between group discussions on a wide range of controversial questions in molecular testing and brief presentations by the panelists on key elements of this complex topic.  The presentations planned are as follows:

Dr. Alice Shaw: Prevalence of mutations by histology, race, and smoking status
Dr. Charlie Rudin: Finding a druggable target: The Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium splintering lung cancer into small subsets
Dr. David Spigel: Integration of molecular markers into multicenter clinical trials: Benefits and Challenges
Dr. Glen Goss: The feasibility of integrating molecular markers across a comprehensive health care system: the intersection of benefit with cost and other practical factors

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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 transcript and figures:

millard-on-tobacco-and-lung-cancer-audio-podcast

millard-on-tobacco-and-lung-cancer-transcript

millard-on-tobacco-and-lung-cancer-figures

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We’re pleased to partner again with LUNGevity Foundation in bringing another webinar next month, on the subject of “Highlights in Lung Cancer, 2011″ and by our very own Dr. Jared Weiss.

Dr. Weiss is an Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology and specialist in lung and head/neck cancer at the Lineberger Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a leading center in lung cancer research.  He is even better known here for his terrific participation and leadership as part of the GRACE Faculty and newly appointed Director of the Lung Cancer and Head/Neck Cancer sections, where he combines his experience and knowledge about cancer with balanced, accessible communication, and his own philosophy on how diet is intimately related to quality of life.

The program itself will be on Thursday, January 19th, at 7 PM Eastern, 4 PM Pacific and will include his presentation for approximately 40-45 minutes covering his perspective on the most important developments in lung cancer over the last year, leaving the remainder of the hour for questions from our live audience.  As always, we’ll record the program and make it available as a podcast (video and audio formats) for anyone who misses the live program or just wants to catch it over and over.  Dr. Weiss has his groupies.

Registration for this free webinar is here.  Hope you can make it!

Here’s the podcast from the recent webinar by Dr. David Yankelevitz, Professor of Radiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, on the subject of “Pulmonary Nodules: Evaluation and Management”.  He took us through a wonderful review of many recent developments in CT scans, both in screening programs and informal workup of many other medical settings, as well as how the best radiologists distinguish higher from lower risk nodules.  He also covered the work-up of higher risk nodules with CT-guided biopsies.

One key point: a huge proportion of lung nodules aren’t cancer, and as our CT scanners get more sensitive, we’re going to be finding nodules in just about everyone.  But when they’re that common, it’s not really appropriate to call them abnormal.

Below is the audio and video versions of the podcast, as well as the transcript and figures:

dr-yankelevitz-pulm-nodules-evaluation-and-management-audio-podcast

dr-yankelevitz-pulm-nodules-evaluation-and-management-transcript

dr-yankelevitz-pulm-nodules-evaluation-and-management-figures

This was another webinar in the expert series that we developed in partnership with LUNGevity Foundation.  Thanks to both Dr. Yankelevitz and LUNGevity for making this great program possible.  I hope it’s helpful.

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Following the terrific presentations by Drs. Ben Solomon and Ross Camidge on the science and clinical experience with the novel ALK inhibitor XALKORI (crizotinib), we had a question and answer session, which is now available as a podcast.  Here’s the audio podcast and transcript for it (not really a video component for this one).

drs-solomon-and-camidge-qa-on-alk-inhibition-transcript

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Continuing with Dr. Ross Camidge as our focus (see yesterday’s post for a brief update from him on the afatinib/cetuximab trial), today let’s turn to the recent webinar program he and Dr. Ben Solomon did with us on the subject of ALK Inhibition: From Biology to FDA-Approved Therapy for Advanced NSCLC”.   After Dr. Solomon provided an excellent summary of the biology and early clinical experience with XALKORI (crizotinib) that was so impressive in (the admittedly limited population of) ALK-positive patients, Dr. Camidge led us through the second part of the program.  His focus was on the practical implications from here: with a newly approved therapy of XALKORI tied to a rather uncommon molecular marker, who should we be screening for it?  And what are the options for these patients after they develop acquired resistance to XALKORI?

Here is the presentation by Dr. Camidge in audio and video podcast format, along with the associated transcript and figures for the program:

dr-camidge-on-molecular-screening-and-postcriz-rx-audio-podcast

dr-camidge-on-molecular-screening-and-postcriz-rx-transcript

dr-camidge-on-molecular-screening-and-postcriz-rx-figures

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Several weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to be joined by not one but two international stars in lung cancer research that is being translated directly from lab bench to bedside of the patient.  I don’t think there’s a more clear and inspiring example of good science leading to effective therapy, albeit for a limited patient population, than the story of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor crizotinib (recently FDA approved and commercially launched as XALKORI) for patients with an EML4-ALK rearrangement (approximately 4% of the broader NSCLC population).  Drs. Ben Solomon from Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, and Ross Camidge from University of Colorado, in Denver, collaborated with a handful of other international researchers from all over the world to study crizotinib and conduct the critical trials, shepherding its development into a treatment now available to help a targeted subset of patients with this targeted therapy.

Dr. Ben Solomon spoke first, providing an overview of the (short) history of the EML4-ALK translocation and how crizotinib began to be studied in the first patients.  He then took us on a tour of the highlights of both the efficacy data for this new agent and the side effect profile.  Here’s the audio and video podcast versions of his presentation, along with pdf files of the accompanying transcript and figures:

dr-solomon-alk-inhibition-science-to-approved-therapy-audio-podcast

dr-solomon-alk-inhibition-science-to-approved-therapy-transcript

dr-solomon-alk-inhibition-science-to-approved-therapy-figures

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Following the excellent podcast by Dr. Rogerio Lilenbaum, lung cancer expert and now Chair of Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston,  on Considerations and Challenges of Treating Elderly Patients with Lung Cancer, he fielded questions from me and the folks in the live audience who attended.   Here’s that question and answer session, provided in audio and with the associated transcript.  There isn’t really any video/figures for this one.

dr-lilenbaum-qa-on-treating-lung-cancer-in-elderly-pts-transcript

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Here’s the presentation by my friend and colleague Dr. Rogerio Lilenbaum, a great medical oncologist now serving as Director of Hematology/Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in South Florida (Weston, FL).  Though he’s been renowned in lung cancer in general for many years, he’s best known for his particular knowledge and leadership on the topic of managing lung cancer in elderly and frail (variably referred to as poor risk or poor performance status) patients.

Here is his talk, in audio and video podcast format, along with the associated figures and transcript:

dr-lilenbaum-on-treating-lung-cancer-in-elderly-pts-audio-podcast

dr-lilenbaum-on-treating-lung-cancer-in-elderly-pts-figs

dr-lilenbaum-on-treating-lung-cancer-in-elderly-pts-transcript

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Here’s another case in the recording I did with Drs. Jyoti Patel from Northwestern and Bob Doebele from University of Colorado, discussing a series of perplexing cases in lung cancer management, then combining their comments with the responses from several other terrific experts (Drs. Suresh Ramalingam, Jonathan Goldman, Julie Brahmer, Heather Wakelee, and Karen Reckamp) about the same case.  From each one, you can get a sense of the variability in how different lung cancer experts share the same set of data but have their own interpretation and style for cases where there are significant gaps in what the data tell us.

This particular case is one we struggle with all the time, and one for which many people have asked questions here.  Once someone with unresectable stage III NSCLC has completed initial chemo/radiation, typically over an approximately seven week period, should we recommend any additional treatment after that.  We are generally tempted to do so, in hopes of providing better results than what we might expect without it, but we don’t have evidence that it helps.  I think you’ll get a clear sense of the uncertainty (at least mine), but several of the speakers also note their different mindset for those patients treated with weekly carbo/Taxol (paclitaxel) (which we believe doesn’t give meaningful systemic dosing to eradicate micrometastatic disease, but it can help make the radiation given concurrently more effective) versus “full dose” cisplatin/etoposide (which we feel does treat possible distant disease in addition to helping make the radiation more effective where it is directed).

So here’s the audio and video versions of the podcast, along with the transcript and figures from the presentation.

grace-cases-stage-iiib-nsclc-chemort-and-consolidation-q-audio-podcast

grace-cases-stage-iiib-nsclc-chemort-and-consolidation-q-transcript

grace-cases-stage-iiib-nsclc-chemort-and-consolidation-q-figures

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