Dr. David Gerber, University of Texas-Southwestern, reviews a Swiss study comparing tri-modality therapy with chemoradiation followed by surgery to chemo followed by surgery for stage IIIA NSCLC.

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Dr. David Gerber, University of Texas-Southwestern, reviews results of the START trial of tecemotide immunotherapy for stage III unresectable NSCLC.

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Dr. David Gerber, University of Texas-Southwestern, reviews results from RTOG 0617 that help clarify the optimal dose of radiation for stage III unresectable NSCLC.

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Dr. David Gerber, University of Texas-Southwestern, reviews the current questions in managing locally advanced NSCLC with chemo/radiation as introduction to key issues addressed in trials from ASCO 2013.

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One of the highest profile clinical studies over the last few years has been the START trial of Stimuvax, also known as L-BLP-25 or tecemotide, an immunotherapy that looked promising in a randomized phase II trial that led to a subsequent phase III trial that administered Stimuvax or placebo after chemo and radiation for locally advanced (stage III) NSCLC, as described more in this post about STIMUVAX and the START trial from early 2007.

Dr. Jack West, medical oncologist at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle, Washington, talks about the right amount of chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced, non-small cell lung cancer. For more information, visit www.swedish.org/lungcancer

Here's a brief video on the basic premise of treating locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. 

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I'll plan to do others in which I'll cover more details on it.  And if you've got video topics for me to cover, just offer your suggestions. 

Here's another case in the recording I did with Drs. Jyoti Patel from Northwestern and Bob Doebele from University of Colorado, discussing a series of perplexing cases in lung cancer management, then combining their comments with the responses from several other terrific experts (Drs. Suresh Ramalingam, Jonathan Goldman, Julie Brahmer, Heather Wakelee, and Karen Reckamp) about the same case.

Our multidisciplinary thoracic oncology tumor board is dynamic and a highlight of the week, facilitated in equal parts by the fact that our group genuinely enjoys each other’s company and that it is the source of some engaging debate about the potential best way to manage several complex scenarios in lung cancer.

We've recently received a series of questions on the question of whether it makes sense to give an oral EGFR inhibitor like Tarceva (erlotinib) or Iressa (gefitinib) concurrently with radiation. This is really a poorly studied question, but a paper just published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology describes a clinical trial that helps to address this question.