In a study of more than 20,000 patients 65 and older with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), treatment rates declined more in relation with increasing age than with the worsening of other illnesses.
The study, led by a team at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) and University of California San Francisco (UCSF), found that for all stages of cancer, younger patients were more apt to receive treatment than older patients, regardless of general health and prognosis.
For every nurse there is a patient who you will never forget; the details of that story will not blur over time. In the developing era of personalized medicine, there is that one patient whose story I will not easily forget. It is the story of a 24-year-old male medical student who presented for initial consultation the same week that crizotinib was approved by the FDA for the treatment of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non-small cell lung cancer.
In patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ALK gene rearrangements, treatment with crizotinib provided clinically meaningful antitumor activity, producing responses in 51% of patients, in a multicenter phase 2 study reported at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress. Rearrangements in ALK are seen in up to 5% of patients, and crizotinib—a first-in-class, oral, potent, and selective small molecular entity—competitively inhibits ALK. Read More ›
On August 26, 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved crizotinib (Xalkori) for the treatment of certain patients with late-stage, non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) who express the abnormal anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene.
Between 1% and 7% of patients with NSCLC have the ALK gene abnormality, which causes cancer development and growth. This form of lung cancer is usually found in nonsmokers. Crizotinib works by blocking particular proteins, including the protein produced by the abnormal ALK gene.
First-line treatment with erlotinib prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) and increased the response rate compared with treatment with chemotherapy in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activating mutations, according to an interim analysis of this phase 3 randomized European Tarceva vs Chemotherapy (EURTAC) trial presented at the 14thWorld Conference on Lung Cancer.
Use of low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) for the detection of lung cancer reduced the rate of death over use of the more traditional chest radiography (CXR), according to the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). The NSLT found that, with a rate of adherence to screening was more than 90%, LDCT exhibited a positive screening rate of 24.2%, whereas CXR exhibited 6.9%. Both techniques produced a high rate of false positives.
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SAN DIEGO—Stereotactic radiation appears to be highly effective and safe for treatment of patients with operable, early-stage non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In some cases, it may be an appropriate alternative surgery, resulting in fewer side effects, according to a new Japanese study presented at the 52nd annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) defines cancer survivors as “people who have been diagnosed with cancer and the people in their lives who are affected by their diagnosis including family members, friends, and caregivers.”
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