Here's the podcast from a webinar I did last month with Dr. Weiss on the subject of whether patients with very limited small cell lung cancer (SCLC) should perhaps undergo surgery as a first intervention. Historically, surgery isn't considered as a typical treatment for patients with SCLC, even if it's very early stage, but some results from retrospective experiences suggest that the patients who undergo surgery in this setting do very well. While that's true, the central question is whether they do well because they receive surgery or because they had a very unusual SCLC that was able to be detected so early. This podcast covers the evidence and the lingering questions about this topic. Along the way, it also provides some discussion of the general characteristics of SCLC.

Here's the audio and video versions of the podcast, along with the figures and transcript for the program.

[powerpress]

west-surgery-for-limited-sclc-audio-podcast

west-surgery-for-limited-sclc-figures

west-surgery-for-limited-sclc-transcript

This doesn't apply to very many people, since it's only a consideration for a minority of patients with SCLC, but the principle of patient selection vs. true value of the intervention in small studies, especially retrospective single institution experiences, is very important in interpreting results of cancer publications.

Next I'll cover some exciting results from a trial of ARQ-197, a c-MET inhibitor that has looked encouraging with Tarceva, and the excellent webinar by Dr. Mark Socinski on maintenance chemotherapy is being completed for posting here very soon as well.