Dr. Edward Garon, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, discusses results in a trial that demonstrated a significant survival benefit with nintedanib combined with second line docetaxel in advanced lung adenocarcinoma.

[powerpress]

Here are the 5 presentations at ASCO in stage I-III NSCLC and small cell lung cancer that I think are most interesting and relevant.  You'll note that several are "negative" trials -- blockbusters are hard to come by here -- but even trials that tell us what not to do are important.   And there are some hints of new approaches that could improve outcomes for patients.

The negative trials don't get a lot of discussion, but the ZEPHYR trial, a phase III study that directly compared Zactima (vandetanib), an oral inhibitor of EGFR and angiogenesis, vs. placebo, was one that merits some follow-up after my reporting that it failed to show a survival benefit, which was essentially the only thing we learned about the trial prior to ASCO this year.

Member Neil Berch just wrote a nice summary of the four large randomized clinical trials being done with Zactima (vandetanib), an oral targeted therapy that can block both the VEGF (angiogenic) and EGFR pathways. In fact, the name vandetanib comes from blocking V and E.

This post will be a little different from most of the expert posts on GRACE. I’m not an expert. I’m not an oncologist. In fact, I’m not a physician. I’m a patient with a social science background, and I’ve followed the work on the drug I’m writing about for some time. I’ve been interested in Zactima (vandetanib) for two reasons. First, I thought the early trials looked promising, and it might eventually be a drug that could help me. Second (and this is going to drive Dr. West crazy), the four large phase III trials of Zactima have really catchy acronyms (see below).