Just prior to ASCO, I mentioned the early results of the Cancer and Leurkemia Group B (CALGB -- Group A long-since defunct) 30406 trial.

The following is the edited transcript and figures from a webinar presentation made by Dr. Heather Wakelee, medical oncologist and Associate Professor at Stanford Cancer Center, on Never-Smokers and Gender Differences in Lung Cancer.

The following is the edited transcript and figures from a webinar presentation made by Dr. Heather Wakelee, medical oncologist and Associate Professor at Stanford Cancer Center, on Never-Smokers and Gender Differences in Lung Cancer.

I'll start with the association of lung cancer with smoking.

Here is the first podcast of what we plan will be an ongoing series of round table discussions with cancer experts about real case scenarios and how we make decisions in practice. My guests for the discussion are Drs. Janessa Laskin, medical oncologist from British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, BC, and Alan Sandler, medical oncologist and Director of Hematology/Oncology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

It seems obvious: environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)/passive smoke exposure from being around smokers, can be harmful and may cause cancer in never-smokers. A new paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Lee and colleagues from Korea actually offers some evidence that highlights this, showing that never-smokers in Korea were less likely to have an EGFR mutation if they were exposed to ETS.

I would consider the recently published IPASS trial that compared Iressa (gefitinib) to standard chemo of carbo/taxol (paclitaxel) to be an extremely influential trial in lung cancer that has essentially ushered in a new era of molecularly-defined guidance of our treatment for many patients with advanced NSCLC, and we can expect that this is how we’ll be approaching a much broader population of lung cancer patients.

Dr. Pinder previously summarized the early story of the newly identified EML4-ALK mutation in NSCLC, which traces back only a couple of years. Amazingly, in that short time, treatments targeting this mutation have already been identified and administered to patients who are benefiting from these novel agents at this very moment.

Last year I highlighted a research program out of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC that has been trying to identify molecular genetic factors in never-smokers who develop lung cancer that can help provide explanations and even perhaps a better sense of why anyone, including smokers, may be at higher risk for developing lung cancer than others.

Here's a video presentation on never-smokers with lung cancer, a population that has been a subject of great interest to me for the past several years. Ten years ago, we really didn't focus on smoking status as a relevant issue and didn't break out never-smokers as a group within our lung cancer trials.

This week I happened to see a man in my clinic who I had first met at the time of his diagnosis with metastatic lung cancer more than five years ago. He's from another part of Washington state, and this was his first time back with me to revisit treatment options.