We are in the midst of a remarkable transitional time in cancer care that is exciting but challenging, since we now have patients divided into smaller and smaller groups based on molecular markers.  Along with that, more and more patients and caregivers are participating in social media and online discussion groups.  What are the implications for these changes, and how can we use them to accelerate the pace of clinical research?  I'd like to focus on a couple of key questions for our next lung cancer tweetchat on September 26, at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific.

Just last week I reviewed the favorable results in a randomized phase II clinical trial with the novel vascular-targeting immunotherapy bavituximab, which was associated with an approximate doubling of median overall survival when added to Taxotere (docetaxel) and compared with Taxotere alone, along with a much more modest improvement in response rate and progression-free survival.

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".