Acquired Resistance Forum Video #7: Speakers from videos #5 and #6 at the Acquired Resistance in Lung Cancer Patient Forum sat for a moderated Q&A with Dr. Jack West.

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Acquired Resistance Forum Video #5: Dr. Gideon Blumenthal of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discussed the FDA process for approving targeted therapies.

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This bit of news slipped under the radar for the past six weeks, but oral topotecan was approved by the FDA for the treatment of SCLC that has recurred at least 45 days after the last chemotherapy had been given. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I hadn't noted this, but it really got very little airplay. Part of it is that topotecan was already available and approved for recurrent SCLC in its IV form.

This week, the US FDA made a public announcement to alert the public that it had received reports of several patient deaths from the technique of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) to lung tumors. This is an investigational technique that I described in a prior post, after several members asked about RFA.

As mentioned in prior posts, the anti-angiogenic monoclonal antibody Avastin (bevacizumab) is now approved in first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC in combination with carboplatin/paclitaxel chemotherapy. Among the very interesting questions is whether Avastin should be added with other active drugs for NSCLC. Most of us in the field strongly suspect that the survival benefit from Avastin will also be the case with other types of therapy, but we’re only starting to get the evidence to address this.