#LCSM Chat Topic 05/09/2019: What’s new in early stage lung cancer
Our May 9, 2019 #LCSM Chat at 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific) will focus on the newest treatments for early stage lung cancer. The topic should be interesting to all who deal with early stage disease — patients, caregivers, oncology nurses, surgeons, radiologists, pulmonologists, pathologists, and oncologists.
Although we have all heard about the tremendous advances in the treatment of metastatic lung cancer, we sometimes don’t appreciate the incredible progress we have also made in diagnosing and treating early stage lung cancer. Early stage patients can realistically strive for and expect cures.
However, challenges still remain. As opposed to many other cancers, the majority of lung cancer patients currently present with metastatic disease. As we find more lung cancers through lung cancer screening programs, incidentally, or through an overall increased awareness of the disease, we hope that will change and that most patients will be diagnosed earlier. But, even for patients with stage I lung cancer, survival rates are generally not as good as those seen in other common cancers such as breast, prostate, and colon cancer. Opportunities therefore exist to markedly improve outcomes in lung cancer patients with limited (stage I) or with local-regional disease (stage II and III).
With that in mind, the @lcsmchat team will discuss recent advances in early stage lung cancer. Some think treatment paradigms in these patients will change in the coming years just as dramatically as they have for patients with metastatic lung cancer. Advances in diagnosis of hard-to-get-to lung nodules will identify lung cancers even earlier. Targeted surgical therapy will cure these cancers, while minimizing harm to patients. Stereotactic radiation will increasingly become an alternative to surgical therapy for sicker patients and perhaps even for healthy patients. And finally, the drugs which have been so successfully targeted to patients with metastatic disease will increasingly be found to have value for patients with earlier stage disease.
Please join moderator Brendon Stiles (@BrendonStilesMD) in our May 9 #LCSM Chat to discuss cover the following topics:
- T1. What interventional pulmonology advances might improve diagnosis of lung nodules found on CT scans?
- T2. What is “targeted surgical therapy”? When can lung cancer surgery take less tissue than a complete lobe (lobectomy)?
- T3. Can stereotactic radiation be an alternative to surgery for some patients with early stage lung cancer?
- T4. Should targeted therapy be given to early stage lung cancer patients with driver mutations (like EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET)?
- T5. Is there a role for immunotherapy in patients with early stage lung cancer?
Hope you’ll join us! Please remember to include #LCSM in ALL your tweets so the other chat participants can see them. If you need a refresher, read our primer on participating in the chat. Note that some tweetchat apps (like tchat.io) will not display tweets longer than 140 characters.
#LCSM Chat Topic 04/11/2019: Why research matters for lung cancer
It’s easy to understand the importance of lung cancer education and advocacy. Of COURSE we should help patients and caregivers learn more about different types of lung cancer, biomarker testing, and treatment options. Of course we should help them come together, to raise their voices, to make the general public understand the terrible toll lung cancer extracts from individuals and society, to combat stigma and nihilism.
But what about research? Some people suggest research isn’t as important as education or advocacy. They ask, “But what does research actually do for today’s patients?”
Our April #LCSM Chat will start April 11, 2019 at 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific) and focus on “Why research matters for lung cancer.” The term “research” covers many topics, from discovering the reasons why patients get lung cancer, to investigating how to detect lung cancer earlier, to identifying and refining drug targets, to developing new treatments for lung cancer patients. And research itself covers a broad spectrum, from basic science research, to translational research studies on biological materials from lung cancer patients, to clinical studies on patients themselves.
Nothing moves the needle more for lung cancer patients than research. As an example, let’s consider the story of ALK rearranged lung cancer. This molecular rearrangement was first described in lung cancer in 2007. Based upon knowledge of its role in other tumors and based upon laboratory studies of cell lines with ALK rearrangements, an existing drug was hoped to potentially be effective for these patients. Building on what researchers and oncologists had learned from clinical trials in patients with EGFR mutations, prospective clinical trials were able to narrowly focus on patients specifically with ALK rearrangements and to quickly demonstrate the efficacy of that drug. It was approved for patients less than four years later. Today there are many other targeted drugs for ALK rearranged lung cancer patients that work even better. Additionally, tremendous efforts are being made to understand optimal sequencing of these drugs as well as strategies to overcome treatment resistance. This has undoubtedly changed the lives and outlooks of thousands of lung cancer patients. A recent paper reported that at a specialty lung cancer center, the median survival of ALK positive patients was 6.8 years compared to just 9 months for patients without targetable molecular alterations! Such success would have been hard to imagine just ten years ago. Fortunately, the ALK story is not unique. Patients with molecular aberrations in EGFR, ROS1, BRAF, MET, NTRK, and others may experience similar success, thanks in some part to education and advocacy, but particularly driven by research. And research into immunotherapy (which won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2018) has now opened the door to patients not lucky enough to have these “driver” mutations. Clearly research has changed the face of lung cancer and the lives of many patients diagnosed with this terrible cancer.
Please join moderator Brendon Stiles (@BrendonStilesMD) in our April 11 #LCSM Chat for an exploration of lung cancer research. We will cover the following topics:
- T1. Is research just for future patients, or do current patients also benefit?
- T2. In what areas is more research most needed for lung cancer?
- T3. What can researchers do to make their work more accessible to patients and advocates?
- T4. What is the @IASLC STARS program and why are programs that train patients and advocates important?
- T5. How can patients and advocates get more involved with research?
Please remember to include #LCSM in ALL your tweets so the other chat participants can see them. If you need a refresher, read our primer on participating in the chat. Note that some tweetchat apps (like tchat.io) will not display tweets longer than 140 characters. Hope you’ll join us!
#LCSM Chat Topic 03/07: Biomarker Magicians (or, Why We Love Pathologists)
Diagnosing the type of lung cancer from a tissue or liquid biopsy is absolutely critical to selecting treatment and determining the patient’s prognosis. However, for many lung cancer patients and their families, the role of tumor tissue in their diagnosis is a mystery. What happens to tissue collected in a biopsy? How is it analyzed? What is involved in getting helpful answers from biomarker testing?
The specialized doctors responsible for answering these questions are pathologists. They identify any lung cancer cells in the biopsied tissue, and guide the patient’s biomarker testing. Unfortunately, pathologists do not typically speak with patients, so patients and families–and even some doctors–often do not have a clear understanding of the role pathologists play in their diagnosis and treatment. Learning more about the pathologist’s role can help patients and families cut through the hype about biomarker testing and provide a better understanding of the patient’s specific disease.
Please join moderator and pathologist Dr. Timothy Craig Allen (@TimAllenMDJD) at 8 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, March 7, 2019, for a discussion about the pathologist’s role in lung cancer, a subject potentially affecting all lung cancer patients and doctors. We will cover the following topics:
- T1: What role does a pathologist play in diagnosing lung cancer? How is a molecular pathologist different from a pathologist?
- T2: What happens to tumor tissue after a biopsy?
- T3: How does a pathologist know if a cell is cancerous? How can they tell what type of lung cancer it is (e.g., small cell vs adenocarcinoma)?
- T4: How does a molecular pathologist decide what biomarker tests to do?
- T5: If you have talked to your pathologist, what did you learn? If you haven’t, what would you like to learn?
Please remember to include #LCSM in ALL your tweets so the other chat participants can see them. If you need a refresher, read our primer on participating in the chat. Note that some tweetchat apps (like tchat.io) will not display tweets longer than 140 characters. Hope you’ll join us!
