Dr. Jack West, medical oncologist, reviews evidence in favor of adding Avastin (bevacizumab) to the EGFR inhibitor Tarceva (erlotinib) for patients with lung cancer that harbors an activating EGFR mutation.

Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (BAC) is an unusual subtype of lung cancer; medical oncologist Dr. Jack West reviews the evidence on the best systemic therapy to treat advanced, multifocal BAC.

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One of the major questions in the field of EGFR mutation-positive advanced NSCLC is whether we should continue patients on EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy as we transition to new treatment options because of acquired resistance after an initial good response.

It's been a decade since EGFR gene mutations were first identified as highly correlated with a high probability of response to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) like Iressa (gefitinib) and Tarceva (erlotinib), and more recently Gilotrif (afatinib).

One of the high profile presentations in the lung cancer track at ASCO 2014 was from Dr. James Yang of a pooled analysis of the LUX-Lung 3 and LUX-Lung 6 trials, each comparing Gilotrif (afatinib) to standard chemotherapy as first line treatment of EGFR mutation-positive advanced NSCLC, which for the first time demonstrated an actual survival benefit not seen in similarly designed trials with Iressa (gefitinib) or Tarceva (erlotinib).

I recently had the honor of providing the expert commentary at the ASCO 2014 conference on three high impact lung cancer presentations, all on the subject of treatment options for molecularly defined populations (EGFR and ALK). I'll review the findings from these three abstracts and my perspective on each of these, starting with a very provocative presentation by Dr.

EGFR T790M is a point mutation in the EGFR gene that is associated with resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase inhibitors like erlotinib and gefitinib. Since its initial discovery in 2005, the T790M mutation has been the subject of much research aiming to better understand drug resistance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the role of T790M as a biomarker for the clinical care of lung cancer patients over the same time period has been less clear.

Every year, many of the most important developments in cancer care are presented at ASCO. This year, we've got what I think is a very important year in lung cancer, with several practice-changing results/.

This is a slide presentation I did last week at a local conference, describing the steady, incremental improvements in survival with advanced/metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that have occurred over the past 10-15 years.