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November 14, 2021
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8 important updates for Lung Cancer Awareness Month

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Lung Cancer Awareness Month, observed every November, is intended to educate the public about the potential causes and risk factors of the disease.

It also promotes the need for screening among eligible populations, as well as the importance of research underway to identify more effective treatments.

Lung cancer CT photo
Source: Adobe Stock.

In conjunction with Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Healio presents eight important updates in lung cancer treatment that may be relevant to your practice.

  1. The FDA granted fast track designation to bemcentinib for treatment of certain patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Read more.
  2. The addition of nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol Myers Squibb) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved EFS among patients with resectable NSCLC. Read more.
  3. The addition of canakinumab (ACZ885, Novartis) to pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) and chemotherapy failed to extend PFS or OS among patients with advanced NSCLC. Read more.
  4. The addition of sintilimab (Innovent Biologics/Eli Lilly) to chemotherapy prolonged PFS for patients with pretreated EGFR-mutated nonsquamous NSCLC. Read more.
  5. The FDA expanded the approval of atezolizumab (Tecentriq, Genentech/Roche) to include adjuvant treatment of certain patients with NSCLC. The approval applies to use of the agent after resection and platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with stage II to stage IIIA disease whose tumors have PD-L1 expression on at least 1% of tumor cells. Read more.
  6. Most patients with lung cancer — including those receiving active therapy — produced neutralizing antibodies to COVID-19 after vaccination. Read more.
  7. Trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu; AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo) demonstrated strong antitumor activity among patients with previously treated HER2-mutated NSCLC. Read more.
  8. Older patients with late-stage NSCLC appeared to benefit from immunotherapy. Read more.