Dr. Phil Bonomi, from Rush University, discusses his perspective on side effects of targeted therapies as compared with standard chemotherapy for patients with lung cancer.

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Dr. Rosalyn Juergens, McMaster University, offers her view on the best way to approach the common scenario of an EGFR mutation or other "driver mutation" being identified after a patient is already on first line chemotherapy. When should we switch from one treatment to another?

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Dr. Ravi Salgia from University of Chicago discusses his perspective on side effects of targeted therapies as compared with standard chemotherapy for patients with lung cancer. 

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Dr. Greg Riely offers his view on the best way to approach the common scenario of an EGFR mutation or other "driver mutation" being identified after a patient is already on first line chemotherapy. When should we switch from one treatment to another?

Dr. Oxnard from Dana Farber Cancer Institute provides his insight on which patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer he pursues molecular testing for, and which molecular markers are the highest priority.

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Dr. Karen Kelly of University of California, Davis, presents her current view on using molecular markers in early stage non-small cell lung cancer and explains the RADIANT study that she leads.

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Here I briefly discuss a challenging case of a patient who has an exon 20 mutation in the EGFR gene, which isn't one of the mutation types associated with a high probability of responding well to an oral EGFR inhibitor.  I cover the approach I favored and also some limited information that has just emerged to help clarify what we might expect for patients with an uncommon to rare variant  of an EGFR mutation (~5% of mutations detected).

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I hope it's interesting and helpful.  As always, I welcome your comments and questions.

There's been a theme with the inhibitors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) -- both oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and IV monoclonal antibodies -- that the patients who demonstrate good results with these agents tend to get a rash, while the patients who don't get a rash do poorly.

Here's the second half of the presentation by Dr. Gerard Silvestri, expert pulmonologist and critical care specialist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, on pulmonary complications from lung cancer treatment.

A few years ago, I reviewed a blood test called VeriStrat that evaluates the patterns of proteins in the blood and reports a profile of either “Good” (in about 2/3 of patients with advanced NSCLC) or “Poor” (in the remaining 1/3 of patients) for EGFR inhibitor therapy.