With last week's FDA approval of alimta in the first line setting for NSCLC, we're likely to see a lot of alimta (pemetrexed) use shift from the second and third line setting to first line. Alimta's been a very popular choice for previously treated patients, based on issues like the relatively convenient schedule of a ten minute infusion one day every three weeks, no hair loss, and typically less of a drop in blood counts than seen with some other regimens.

Yesterday, as described in a press release, the FDA approved the regimen of cisplatin and alimta as a first line therapy for advanced NSCLC, based on the positive results from a trial called "JMDB" by the sponsor company (Eli Lilly).

There are two widely tested epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) -- iressa (gefitinib) and tarceva (erlotinib).

Last week, updated information on the AVAiL (AVAstin in Lung cancer) trial (see prior post) of cisplatin/gemcitabine with either placebo or a low or higher (full) dose of avastin was presented in a meeting in Stockholm.

One of the topics that frequently occurs in the clinic, and that patients often ask about, is the situation in which there is some suggestion of slight progression. This can take the form of many different situations: a rising tumor marker (see

Another lung cancer trial that received a good deal of attention at the recent European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) conference in Stockholm this past week was conducted by the Spanish Lung Cancer Group and led by Dr. Rafael Rosell, who is chief of medical oncology at Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona and one of the true international greats in the field who has made important contributions for a couple of decades now.

The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, similar to ASCO but based in Europe, has been going on in Stockholm, where the results of a study called the First Line Iressa versus Carboplatin/Paclitaxel in Asia Study (taking some liberties to force it into the acronym "IPASS") was presented in the Presidential Symposium by my friend and Hong Kong-based colleague Tony Mok.

Imclone put out a press release yesterday that the previously described, US-based BMS-099 trial of carboplatin-taxane (either taxol (paclitaxel) or taxotere (docetaxel), investigator's discretion) with or without the EGFR monoclonal antibody erbitux (ceteuximab) has failed to demonstrate a statistically significant i

In the last few years BAC has become increasingly studied and recognized as a distinct clinical subtype of lung cancer. The classic BAC syndrome is characterized by progression limited to the lungs, and its growth can be quite variable. The definition of BAC based on pathology has been applied pretty variably: although it should really be a non-invasive cancer that shouldn’t be able to spread outside of the lungs because it can’t invade into the bloodstream, most clinical trials now permit a combination of invasive adenocarcinoma with BAC features.

We’re recognizing more and more that lung cancer in never-smokers (LCINS) is a distinct disease, with different patterns of who gets it, how the cancer behaves, and it responds to treatments. But this recognition is still a work in progress, coming from a background in which the party line has been that NSCLC is treated the same regardless of the histologic type (squamous, adenocarcinoma, large cell, or other), smoking history, or other factors.