The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

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The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What are antibody drug conjugates (ADCs)? Expert Dr. Grace Dy defines this new class of therapy and explains how ADCs work to treat lung cancer.

Dr. Grace Dy is Chief of Thoracic Oncology and Professor of Oncology in the Department of Medicine at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. Learn more about Dr. Grace Dy.

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What is the role of antibody drug conjugates in lung cancer care? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

So, the antibody drug conjugates are an exciting new class of therapy. In fact, it’s been developed for decades, but we had the first antibody drug conjugate that was just approved less than a year ago in lung cancer. And that’s the drug called trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu). It seems like we’re always steps behind our breast cancer colleagues. 

You know, trastuzumab deruxtecan was first developed in breast cancer patients. But hey, we also find we can have some subset of patients who will derive benefit from that. But that’s just one example. There’s plenty of antibody drug conjugates that are being developed. 

So, what are antibody drug conjugates? So, as the name implies, it’s an antibody that is attached to a drug that is actually typically chemotherapy, but you can use any other drug. Generally, it’s a chemotherapy. So, you can think of it as a targeted way of delivering chemotherapy because the antibody is very specific to a certain protein. And generally, what we try to do is look for proteins that are more expressed in cancers than in normal tissues. And you try to target that and improve the therapeutic index by using a more potent chemotherapy and potentially increase efficacy that way.

Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects

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Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. David Carbone, a lung cancer expert, emphasizes the importance of speaking up, advocating for yourself, and being an active member of your non-small cell lung cancer health care team. 

Dr. David Carbone is a medical oncologist and professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University. Dr. Carbone is also co-leader of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James, where serves as director of the Thoracic Oncology Center. Learn more about Dr. Carbone, here.

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Transcript:

Katherine:                  

Patients can sometimes feel like they’re bothering their healthcare team with their comments and questions. Why is it important for patients to speak up, and become a partner in their own care? 

Dr. Carbone:              

So, it’s a fact that when patients get the diagnosis of lung cancer, everything changes in their lives. They suddenly have a whole new vocabulary thrown at them. It’s like their doctor is speaking French to them. They have to trust their life to a person they’ve never met before, and a whole cadre of people coming in and talking to them and poking them and running through scanners. 

It’s very difficult for someone whose biggest concern was what to make for dinner that night, and now has a diagnosis of lung cancer, to really comprehend what’s going on. And lung cancer is complicated, so I recommend that patients really try their best to have at least a basic understanding of what’s going on, where their cancer is. I always show the patient their scans.  

“Your cancer is here; this is what it looks like; that’s why you’re having that pain over there, because you have this spot here. Your genetic testing shows this and this, and that’s why it’s important, and that’s why we’re using this drug to match this mutation.” And these are things patients will understand if doctors will explain it to them.  

And similarly, the side effects. Lung cancer patients tend to be tough people. They’ll say, “It’s not so bad, I feel better; but the side effect is not so bad. I’m just not going to tell them.” And it even happens in clinic that they’ll tell me they feel fine, and then they’ll tell the nurse that they hurt in their left elbow. And I have to go back in and ask them some more questions on that.  

So, it’s extremely important to feel comfortable in communicating with your doctor, asking questions; “Why am I getting this scan? Why are we using this treatment? Is this the best treatment? Are there clinical trials available? I have this new symptom, x, y, z,” because symptoms are often much easier to treat when you catch them early than when you catch them late.  

And you don’t get a medal for being a tough guy in this situation. Tell your doctor if you have pain, and they can manage it. Tell them if you’re short of breath, and they can help you feel better. They can’t help you if you don’t tell them, and you are your own best advocate in this situation. Ask questions about the treatment, and why that’s the best one for you; and, as I said, about clinical trials. 

Katherine:                  

Excellent. Thank you so much. It’s important for people to remember that.  

Fact or Fiction? Busting Myths About Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

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Fact or Fiction? Busting Myths About Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. David Carbone debunks common misconceptions about non-small cell lung cancer, including treatment effectiveness, age and lung cancer, and patient’s quality of life after treatment.

Dr. David Carbone is a medical oncologist and professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University. Dr. Carbone is also co-leader of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James, where serves as director of the Thoracic Oncology Center. Learn more about Dr. Carbone, here.

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Transcript:

Katherine:                  

A lung cancer diagnosis often has a certain stigma associated with it, but the majority of that is not based in fact. So, I’d like to play a little game with you called Fact or Fiction. All right? All right, first one. Fact or fiction: Lung cancer is a disease of the older population.

Dr. Carbone:              

If you have lungs, you can get lung cancer. That’s it. I’ve seen 20-year-old lung cancer patients. So, I think it can happen to anybody, and unfortunately, things like the CT screening programs are limited to people over the age of 50, but I’ve had many patients in their 30s and 40s. So, if you have lungs, you can have lung cancer.

Katherine:                  

Okay. Next one, fact or fiction: Quality of life is greatly diminished after undergoing treatment for lung cancer.

Dr. Carbone:              

I completely – fiction. I actually tell people often their quality of life is dramatically improved after starting treatments, and that’s my goal.

And with the new treatments, that’s often true. People will tell me within a week that they feel so much better on the treatment than they did before. So, that’s our goal. Our goal is not to make you feel worse. Our goal is to make you feel better.

Katherine:                  

Of course. All right, last one. Fact or fiction: There are no effective treatments for advanced lung cancer.

Dr. Carbone:              

So, the average survival for lung cancer years ago was four to six months from the time of diagnosis to death. That’s bad. And now, we are seeing in these subsets of patients years and years of survival with simple even pill-type treatments or immunotherapies. And even with the immunotherapies, sometimes you get treatments for a year or two, and then we stop; and we have patients who are years later, off of all treatments for metastatic lung cancer, still with no evidence of disease.

So, that is definitely fiction. We have highly effective treatments for lung cancer. But unfortunately, like everything else, and like I’ve said multiple times, it’s not true for everyone. Our treatments aren’t ideal. Sometimes for a particular patient we can’t find a matching treatment, the standard treatments don’t work, and nothing we can find makes a difference. But I would say you never know that until you try, and for the vast majority of patients, we can definitely give them prolonged, good-quality life. And so, I think that that’s definitely fiction.

How Is Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Staged?

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How Is Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Staged? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Dr. David Carbone of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains how non-small cell lung cancer is staged and how staging impacts treatment.

Dr. David Carbone is a medical oncologist and professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University. Dr. Carbone is also co-leader of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James, where serves as director of the Thoracic Oncology Center. Learn more about Dr. Carbone, here.

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What Is the Difference Between Small Cell and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

 Fact or Fiction? Busting Myths About Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

 Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects

Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects

Transcript:

Katherine:

If we’re breaking it down to staging, let’s start with that. What are the stages? 

Dr. Carbone:

Right. So, lung cancer, like many cancers, is staged I, II, III, and  IV, and, of course, there’s now As, Bs, and Cs, and subcategories of those. But the basic distinction patients need to know has some utility.  

So, the stage I lung cancers, in general, are small tumors that aren’t invading into anything, that haven’t spread anywhere to none of the lymph nodes, to no other structures; and they’re the tumors that we like to find. And they’re the ones whose optimal treatment is surgery, with a good cure rate.  

Stage IIs, in general, are those lung cancers that are like stage I, except they involve the nearby lymph nodes in the lung that are called hilar lymph nodes, and those have also a high cure rate, but not quite as so high with surgery; and generally, are treated with surgery followed by chemotherapy, and now, immunotherapy. 

Stage III is what we call locally advanced. It’s still only in the chest, but it invades some important structure or has multiple lymph nodes that are deep within the chest. And some of these are surgically resectable, but the majority of stage IIIs, I would say, are not surgically resectable, and are treated generally with chemoradiation, again followed by immunotherapy.  

With the stage IV lung cancers, really, that is the lung cancer that’s spread outside the chest; typically, to bones, brain, or liver, or elsewhere in the body. 

And that is typically not resectable; though again, there’s exceptions to each of these general rules, and you really need to have that multi-disciplinary evaluation of your cancers to determine the best therapy. But in general, stage IV lung cancers are not surgical candidates, not treated up-front as radiation candidates, and they’re generally treated with medical treatments that go throughout the body, and treat spots of cancer wherever they are.  

What Is the Difference Between Small Cell and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

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What Is the Difference Between Small Cell and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Dr. David Carbone discusses the differences between small cell and non-small cell lung cancer. Dr. Carbone then describes the subtypes of non-small cell lung cancer and which types are most common.

Dr. David Carbone is a medical oncologist and professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University. Dr. Carbone is also co-leader of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James, where serves as director of the Thoracic Oncology Center. Learn more about Dr. Carbone, here.

See More From INSIST! Lung Cancer

Related Resources:

What Treatments Are Available for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

 How Is Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Staged?

 Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects

Why Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Should Speak Up About Symptoms and Side Effects

Transcript:

Katherine:

What is the difference between non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer?

Dr. Carbone:

Well, I like to tell patients every cancer is different from every other cancer, but they can be broadly categorized in two different categories, small cell and non-small cell.

And this derived from decades ago when small cell lung cancer just looked different under the microscope than non-small cell lung cancer. And different small cells can look different, and now we’re sub-typing small cells. But in general, small cells are treated pretty similarly. Non-small cells are divided into two main groups, the squamous cell carcinomas and the adenocarcinomas.

Adenocarcinomas have a variety of subtypes, as well, and then there are a few of the non-small cell lung cancers that are clearly non-small cell but don’t fit into either of those two categories, and they’re called large-cell or not otherwise specified.

And then, there’s a whole slew of rare types of lung cancers that we probably don’t have time to discuss, and mesothelioma that happened in the chest.

Katherine:

Right. Is one type of lung cancer more common than the other?

Dr. Carbone:

So, the vast majority of lung cancers are the non-small cell lung cancers, about 85 percent. And among the non-small cell lung cancers, most of those are adenocarcinomas or non-squamous. Decades ago, squamous was the most common type, and in some parts of the world, it still is. But in the United States, it depends on the region; 60, 70 percent of lung cancers are adenocarcinomas