Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, or BAC, is a unique subtype of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has unique features in terms of the demographics of who gets it, how it appears on scans, how it often behaves, and potentially in how it responds to treatment. It is a subset of lung cancer for which most of what we know emerged in the last 10 years, with our understanding of this entity, and even the definition of BAC, still evolving. What is BAC? BAC was first identified and defined as a separate subtype of lung cancer by Dr.

Please Note: New Treatments Have Emerged Since this Original Post

A lot of new data have emerged over the last 2-3 years that have addressed the concept of "maintenance therapy" for patients with advanced NSCLC (see Dr. Socinski's excellent podcast for a general review).

We learned several months ago that the ATLAS trial of maintenance Avastin (bevacizumab) with either Tarceva (erlotinib) or placebo did not demonstrate a significant improvement in overall survival (OS) with Tarceva, despite the fact that it was associated with an improvement in progres

Here is the continuation of my conversation with Dr. Nasser Hanna, lung cancer expert at Indiana University and all-around good guy (not part of his official title).

One nagging question that people often ask about, or at least worry about, is whether they are compromising their ability to benefit from an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) like Tarceva (erlotinib) or Iressa (gefitinib) if they need to cut down on the dose because of problems with side effects.

Dr. Mark Socinski, international leader in the field of lung cancer, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gave a terrific presentation on timing and selection of treatment after the first line setting for advanced NSCLC. In addition to the podcast of his presentation itself, here now is the question and answer session that followed it.

The Q&A portion includes slides with the questions as well as some slides that illustrate key points. Below, you'll find the audio and video versions of the podcast, the figures, and also the transcript of the program.

I'm very pleased to offer the podcast materials for the recent webinar by Dr. Mark Socinski, medical oncologist and leader of the excellent Thoracic Oncology Program at the University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill. He's been a long-time leader of the entire field of lung cancer for many years, and he's among the best at synthesizing new information into a cogent perspective.

Here is the audio and video versions of the podcast, along with the figures and transcript that go with the program.

[powerpress]

Earlier this week, the Boston (Woburn, actually)-based company Arqule announced preliminary results from a trial of their investigational oral c-MET inhibitor ARQ 197 combined with the EGFR inhibitor Tarceva (erlotinib), which sent their stock soaring. Although I and other investigators dislike learning about potentially important cancer trial outcomes from the business news outlets, this was again following that pattern.

The second podcast from Dr. Ramalingam's excellent webinar on Personalizing Treatment for First Line NSCLC is the question and answer session that followed it, which includes many questions about EGFR-based therapy, antiangiogenic agents, and other relevant issues for individualized treatments for patients.