Lung Cancer

This is the first of a series of podcasts we've done, developed in partnership with LUNGevity Foundation, in which I present the same challenging cases in lung cancer management to a series of experts to learn the range of views offered by them, then the multiple thoughtful comments by all of them discussing the same single featured case for each podcast. The first discussants in each podcast will be Drs. Bob Doebele from University of Colorado and Jyoti Patel from Northwestern University, who are then followed by other terrific colleagues of mine:

I am sorry to say that there were few surprises or earth-shatteringly positive results at this year's ASCO meeting in Chicago (unless you count my button-shattering belly expansion from too many pizza lunches and dinners). However, in my mind there was one presentation that stood out above the others in terms of real hope for a particularly frustrating subset of lung cancer patients, namely those with EGFR activating mutations that develop resistance to Iressa (gefitinib) or Tarceva (erlotinib).

Though there are many presentations to discuss in the wake of ASCO, we'll need to pace ourselves on these. I and some of the other faculty members will offer thoughts on some of these in the coming weeks, and we also have our upcoming post-ASCO review on June 23rd (click here to learn more and sign up for this free online program).

I apologize if it seems that the updates about ASCO have been slow in coming. This is mostly because the lung cancer program this year has most of the higher profile presentations occurring in the second half of the meeting, which we're just getting into. And, truth be told, this isn't going to be a blockbuster year for developments in lung cancer. But let's review what we've found out about thus far.

Our multidisciplinary thoracic oncology tumor board is dynamic and a highlight of the week, facilitated in equal parts by the fact that our group genuinely enjoys each other’s company and that it is the source of some engaging debate about the potential best way to manage several complex scenarios in lung cancer.

Continued from part 1 Dr. West: You have a huge portion of your patients who have an EGFR mutation and we know that over time patients develop acquired resistance. So how do you approach the patients who have a great response initially, have a known EGFR mutation, and then you see that slipping away at slow progression? Do you continue the EGFR inhibitor? Do you add something to it? Do you change the dose? How do you approach that?

A few weeks ago I had the chance to speak with Dr. Tony Mok, who is a professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong and the Chairman of the Hong Kong Cancer Therapy Society.

The third and last podcast from our discussions with Dr. Lecia Sequist, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, covers the question & answer session that followed her excellent

What is FGF?

FGF is a type of receptor tyrosine kinase. What, you might ask, is a receptor tyrosine kinase? Well, since you were so kind as to ask, and since I'm a bit of a nerd at heart, I'll tell you. Receptor tyrosine kinases are a part of the machinery of a cell; they have a role in signaling to the rest of the cell what it should do.

Here's a continuation of the webinar content by Dr. Lecia Sequist, who is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).