Although Avastin has been approved for first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC, at this point it cannot be universally employed. Patients with squamous cancers account for something in the range of 30% of patients, while patients with brain metastases amount to about 10-15% of patients. Another 5-10% may have hemoptysis, or the symptom of coughing up blood, and many others are on therapeutic blood thinners for a history of blood clots or atrial fibrillation.

Avastin (bevacizumab), an antiangiogenic agent that works by blocking the blood vessel stimulating factor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), has already been FDA approved and commercially available for colon cancer, but it has now been approved by the FDA for first-line treatment of non-squamous NSCLC in combination with standard chemo of carboplatin and paclitaxel (taxol).

Right now we use the same conventional staging system for BAC as with other lung cancers. I don't have a great alternative just yet. I can tell you that as the lead investigator on several BAC trials, there are huge differences in the natural history of their cancer, regardless of what our treatment does.

A recent trial by Olaussen and colleagues was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggested that in the future oncologists may become better at identifying the patients who are more or less likely to benefit from chemotherapy after surgery for early stage non-small cell lung cancer.

The clinical syndrome of BAC is characterized by spread primarily through the lungs, a higher proportion of never-smokers or light former smokers, a greater proportion of women, and often progresses more slowly than most other lung cancers.