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.

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).

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

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.

Thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1) is a protein seen on the surface of thyroid cells, but also on about 70-75% lung adenocarcinomas and only a small minority (~10%) of squamous cell NSCLC tumors. In fact, the presence of TTF-1 on a NSCLC tumor provides a good hint for the pathologist that this is an adenocarcinoma. It's an immunohistochemical (IHC) test that is done on the vast majority of lung cancers, and there's some new information that suggests it may also be useful for predicting which patients are especially unlikely to have an EGFR mutation or ALK rearrangement.

Here's the second talk from our recent webinar, partnering with LUNGevity Foundation to cover the ASCO Highlights in Lung Cancer, and this talk followed after

The following is laden with personal opinion as much as actual evidence. Feel free to take it or leave it.

I apologize if it seems that the updates about ASCO have been slow in coming. This is mostly because the lung cancer program this year has most of the higher profile presentations occurring in the second half of the meeting, which we're just getting into. And, truth be told, this isn't going to be a blockbuster year for developments in lung cancer. But let's review what we've found out about thus far.