HER2 inhibitors have been successfully used to combat breast cancer, but research has shown that a small percentage of lung cancer patients have a HER2 mutation as well. Dr. Leena Gandhi talks about the role that HER2 drugs may play to fight lung cancer.

[powerpress]

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).

An analysis of two large studies of EGFR lung cancer patients tried to determine if Gilotrif helped patients live longer.

[powerpress]

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).

Dr. Geoffrey Oxnard of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute describes what research indicates may be more successful treatments for EGFR lung cancer patients.

[powerpress]

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.

This past week, I saw a new patient who had just moved from another part of the country and needed long-term management of her high risk lung cancer.  A never-smoking Asian woman, she was found to have a stage IIIA lung cancer with "N2" mediastinal lymph nodes involving cancer in her mid-chest.

With the recent approval of afatinib, now becoming commercially available as Gilotrif, there is the potential new strategy for patients with an EGFR mutation who develop acquired resistance to a different EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) in an earlier line of therapy.

Afatinib, newly christened Gilotrif, is the newest EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) approved by the FDA, specifically for patients with an EGFR mutation as first line therapy.