Basic Cancer Info

This is the first of a series of podcasts from the two hour special webinar we did in partnership with the LUNGevity Foundation at the Santa Monica "Targeted Therapies in Lung Cancer" meeting several weeks ago.  There, I was privileged to be joined by four excellent guest faculty members -- Dr.

It started with a patient reporting an unexpected side effect. A 35 year old ALK-positive man with lung cancer who was on XALKORI (crizotinib) noted that he had markedly diminished libido lower energy that had been worsening while on treatment, despite the fact that his cancer appeared to be responding well  His doctor checked his testosterone (T) level and noted it was well below the normal range, then referred him to the endocrinology clinic for consideration of testosterone replacement therapy, which he decided to do, and which helped with his symptoms.

Introduction

Thank you to member Craig for asking some excellent questions in response to my Highlights of 2011 webinar.  Thank you also to Dr. West, who emailed me to comment more on the idea of radiation for cells with acquired resistance.

We’ve spoken at length about EGFR and related mutations such as EML4/ALK and ROS1 on GRACE.  For those who are not familiar with these subjects, I will refer you to my webinar for a summary on the most recent data on EGFR, EML4/ALK and ROS1:

Many people in the lung cancer world consider the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) that demonstrated a 20% improvement in survival from CT-screening higher risk people for lung cancer as a major advance in the field, befitting

Anorexia-cachexia syndrome (ACS), a negative spiral of diminished appetite and weight loss (lean body mass), is a common problem in many kinds of cancer, where it not only leads to patient weakness and diminished function but is also associated with shorter survival.  While it’s possible that the ACS is a late effect that might be an irreversible product of progression of an underlying cancer, it may also be that ACS directly contributes to a patient’s decl

This is the third and final part of Dr. Weiss's presentation on "Highlights in Lung Cancer, 2011".  After focusing on developments in relatively narrow subpopulations with distinct molecular markers in the first two parts of his webinar, Dr.

This long-overdue podcast by Dr.

I'm very proud to have teamed up with Dr. Ross Camidge from the University of Colorado in writing an editorial piece for the current issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology called "Have Mutation, Will Travel: Utilizing Online Patient Communities and New Trial Strategies to Optimize Clinical Research in the Era of Molecularly Diverse Oncology".

I'm just now returning from the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's "12th Annual Targeted Therapies in Lung Cancer Conference", which consisted of about 170 very brief talks about several classes of agents, as I described in my last post.  Some of these are likely to emerge as viable, truly beneficial therapies for patients; many others will fall by the wayside.