Here's a video I just did in response to my recent spate of molecular marker studies I've sent in the last 4-6 weeks that have come back with quite a few positive results for an EGFR mutation or ALK rearrangement, as well as one patient positive for a ROS1 rearrangement.  For each of these patients, the results have had a major impact in the opportunity for them to receive an oral therapy with a high probability of response, and in a few cases, we've already seen a significant improvement.

One of the current controversies in the field of lung cancer is whether we should be doing biopsies routinely when a patient develops progression of their disease, particularly in the setting of acquired resistance to a molecularly targeted therapy.  There are some academic oncologists who favor this approach, but I think there's a very good reason why this isn't and shouldn't be the current standard of care.

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The response of cancers with a specific driver mutation , such as an EGFR mutation or ALK rearrangement, to a targeted inhibitor of that target, is often dramatic and long-lasting, but it is also almost always limited in duration, typically lasting several months or a few years.  Beyond that point, we tend to see a subset of the cancer cells become resistant progress, perhaps manifested as one or several  new lesions or growth of one area against a background of most of the remainder of the cancer still being well-controlled.  

One of the questions that comes up fairly frequently is what to make of a "mixed response" to systemic therapy: after several weeks or months of treatment, a scan shows some areas of known disease shrinking, but others are growing.  Why might this happen? What does it mean? And what should it lead us to do?

Folks here know that just about every day we discuss questions of what molecular marker test to order for lung cancer, how important it is, how it's done, what tissue is needed, and other very timely and practical issues in lung cancer.  These are questions that evolve every few months, as new research emerges with different markers.  

Here's part 5 of our Santa Monica program on Molecular Markers in Advanced NSCLC, closing in on the end of the activity.  In this podcast, my friend Dr.

Here's the next installment of the panel discussion on molecular markers from the webinar in Santa Monica with Drs. Charlie Rudin, Alice Shaw, David Spigel, and Glen Goss.  We continued our animated discussion on the promise as well as the pitfalls of broadening the use of molecular markers in routine practice of managing patients with advanced NSCLC.

I'm happy to bring you now the second part of the Santa Monica webinar, developed with the LUNGevity Foundation, on "Molecular Markers in Advanced NSCLC: Who to Test and What to Test For?", in which I was joined by Drs.

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.