Dr. Luis Raez, MD FACP FCCP, Chief of Hem/Onc and Med. Dir. at Memorial Cancer Institute, and Clinical Associate Prof. of Medicine at FL International U. joined GRACE to discuss integrating immune checkpoint inhibitors into first-line therapy for advanced NSCLC.

Dr. Luis Raez, MD FACP FCCP, Chief of Hematology/Oncology and Med. Director at Memorial Cancer Institute, and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at FL International University joined GRACE to discuss immune checkpoint inhibitors and how they can treat cancer.

Several weeks ago, at a very crowded plenary session for the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Copenhagen, Denmark, results with first line immunotherapy compared to standard first line chemotherapy for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were presented that simultaneously ushered in a new era for testing for PD-L1, the leading predictive marker for sensitivity to immu

Amidst all of the glowing reports about immunotherapy for lung and many other cancers, it would be understandable for patients and physicians to be tempted to rush toward prioritizing immunotherapy as the first treatment strategy to pursue. In fact ...

Among the many novel concepts in managing immunotherapy is the potential for “pseudo-progression”. This unusual phenomenon is when a patient’s scans of the areas of cancer actually appear worse on early imaging, potentially even with new lesions, after starting immunotherapy, but a patient’s scans later show shrinkage of the cancer.  These patients typically feel well, often with improvement in their cancer-related symptoms (fatigue, appetite, etc.) that don’t seem to be concordant with their worse-appearing scans.

With positive trials of two immune checkpoint inhibitors, Opdivo (nivolumab) and Keytruda (pembrolizumab), in second line NSCLC and compared with Taxotere (docetaxel), it should come as a surprise to nobody that another checkpoint inhibitor, Tecentriq (atezolizumab) has also proven superior to Taxotere in the OAK trial of previously treated NSCLC patients, as reported in a press release today.

Dr. Jack West, Swedish Cancer Institute, compares the mechanism of action, efficacy and toxicity of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors.

Transcript

I think there are several goals when treating a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. For one I think we want to extend life, two is I think we want to palliate symptoms, and three is I think we want to improve quality of life. So all three of those goals are achievable, I think, with the therapies that we have right now.

Dr. Nasser Hanna, Indiana University Health, discusses the possible role of immunotherapy in locally advanced NSCLC.

Dr. Jared Weiss, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, evaluates a variety of particular systemic treatment agents for possible use in elderly patients.