The last topic in our discussion of the evolving field of optimal treatment for locally advanced NSCLC is the potential role for induction chemotherapy before radiation, or, more commonly concurrent chemo/radiation (CT/RT).

My last post included studies that demonstrated no additional benefit from giving chemo after concurrent chemo/radiation for locally advanced NSCLC, but it's important to add a qualifier to that conclusion. The studies that have shown an overall favorable result from two cycles, or about 6-7 weeks, of chemo with radiation have thus far primarily been with cisplatin and not carboplatin.

Although consolidation taxotere after concurrent chemo and radiation therapy (CT/RT) emerged as the preferred treatment approach for about 2/3 of American oncologists over the last few years, this was predicated on an incomplete story. We received information from an additional two studies this year, and now it’s a big mess.

As I described in my last post, there is a strong consensus that overlapping chemotherapy (CT) and radiation therapy (RT) provides greater efficacy, meaning higher survival rates, than a sequential, non-overlapping approach for stage III, unresectable NSCLC. Beyond that, it’s a bit of a mess, with a wide range of choices and no clear “right” choice.

When I first started OncTalk, my first priority was to get some basic posts on the site that provided a quick and dirty assessment of the best standards we had for different stages of lung cancer. But not only did several of these gloss over a lot of material very quickly, that was really before I could add figures. I'm going to try to go over some issues that are on the site in a more thorough manner; how chemo and radiation concurrently became the preferred approach for stage III NSCLC is a good place to start.

I wrote in a post several months ago about the ongoing study of the monoclonal entibody against EGFR erbitux (cetuximab) in lung cancer, where it's role is still up in the air. Unlike the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) iressa and tarceva, which showed no benefit when given concurrently with standard chemo, erbitux has a different mechanism and may still be useful when given along with chemo.

It's a little sad that you can get more cancer information from the business websites than from the medical ones, but if you checked a story on Forbes.com today you learned that Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) provided a press release that one of their important Erbitux (cetuximab) trials didn't meet its primary endpoint of improved progression-free

After Avastin was found to produce a survival benefit when combined with chemo in advanced NSCLC, it became increasingly appealing to try to see if adding Avastin in earlier stages of lung cancer, both SCLC and NSCLC, where it might increase the cure rate.

In a talk at ASCO 2007, I was asked to present some commentary on a couple of phase II, single arm trials of patients with ED-SCLC that were reported by two different cancer cooperative groups in the US, each adding the anti-angiogenic agent Avastin (bevacizumab) to standard chemotherapy options in this setting.

In my last post I covered much of the controversy about whether patients with stage IIIA, N2-node positive NSCLC should be treated with induction therapy (chemotherapy or chemo/radiation) followed by surgery, or an alternative approach of chemo along with radiation delivered at a definitive dose (curative, not just the supplemental, lower doses used in induction therapy).