Tag Archive for: lung cancer treatment

Methods to Improve Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication

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What are some ways to improve lung cancer physician-patient communication? Experts Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova and Dr. Jessica Bauman share methods they’ve used and potential ideas for future studies to improve care.

See More from Lung Cancer | Empowering Providers to Empower Patients

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How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate

How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

I wonder if either of you or both of you have any thoughts around unique things that you’ve implemented that have allowed you to really connect and communicate with your patients in spite of these time limitations. Are there any unique things that you all have implemented in real time, like face-to-face, when communicating with patients?

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

So I would say we did a pilot study that has not been implemented full time, and really I think we’re still working on how to best implement something like this but we did a pilot study using sort of educational materials, and this whole sort of pathway and educational system in coordination with our nurse navigators, where you could send sort of a prescription to the patient of reading material or of educational material, as they’re going along. And so, with the idea that early on that one of those prescriptions would be more information about molecular testing and biomarker testing, decision-making, all of those types of things.

We did a small pilot study to incorporate that, which on the surface is fantastic but it was surprisingly challenging to do, to actually implement. And I think that was…we were doing this, again, in collaboration with one of the researchers, the nurse researchers at our institution, and we hit more barriers than expected, because I think we all, as you say, we all want to educate, we all want to make sure that our patients understand and get the information that they need, but the practicality of doing that really successfully and in a streamlined way but that’s also consistent across providers across the institution, it’s a challenge.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Yeah, I can imagine. Are there a chance to extend the pilot or to maybe modify it based on what you all learn from the initial study?

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

I think that that’s…it’s certainly in discussion about how to best implement something like this. Part of that is…again, sort of systems change. The role of the clinic nurse, the nurse navigators has changed a little bit and so even how we envision implementation is going to need to shift somewhat.

Dr. Nicole Rochester

Wonderful. What about you, Dr. Bazhenova? Any pilot studies or any other maybe tips and tricks that you employ independently?

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova

Yeah, we haven’t had any pilot studies but I think the more I think about it…so the challenge of discussing those molecular testing with the patients is the fact that majority of those molecular testing discussions happen in stage IV patients and majority of those discussions happen during the first visit for a patient with stage IV lung cancer where we just discussed that this is an incurable cancer with limited life expectancy. And then how much does our patient actually absorb anything else we said afterwards is still remain to be seen. And I actually have seen like when I talk to the patient because they are so understandably fixated on their prognosis and survival, because it’s going to affect their lives that after that my patient asked me a question that I know I’ve discussed it already because I have my spiel.

I tell the same thing to everybody. And I think now kind of thinking about it out loud after that, during that discussion and maybe we could set up another appointment with a nurse practitioner afterwards, that after the patient kind of already digested all that information, to go over again the management of the molecular abnormalities. And one thing I actually want to highlight and build upon something that Bauman said before, that in those patients we actually usually wait for the molecular testing to come back before we start their therapy. And it is much easier to just prescribe chemotherapy immunotherapy for those patients.

But then you’re going to run into issues of toxicity because if you gave immunotherapy before you give for example EGFR TKI and some ALK TKIs, you can actually going to run into toxicity and you can permanently prevent your patients from continue on tyrosine kinase inhibitors. And so that’s why this is an information that not all oncologists, especially those who practice in a tobacco belt where they don’t see a lot of oncogenic-driven patients, they might not be aware of that. And I think how do we pass that information to the physicians, and also how do we pass that information to the patients that there is an easy way, but easy way in this situation is not the right way. 


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A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards

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A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer tumor boards can bring some key learnings to experts. Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova and Dr. Jessica Bauman share insights about multidisciplinary tumor boards and how information could potentially be shared with community practices.

See More from Lung Cancer | Empowering Providers to Empower Patients

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Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester

Well, Dr. Bazhenova, I know that you lead a weekly tumor board for lung cancer, and I’d love to learn more about some of the things that you can share that may be insightful for other lung cancer experts as a result of the tumor board.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova: 

At UC San Diego, we actually have two tumor boards where lung cancer patients can be presented, one is just a traditional multidisciplinary thoracic tumor board, which is attended by a medical oncologist, surgeons, radiation oncologist, pathologist, interventional people, clinical trial coordinators. And I think this is not unique to UC San Diego. The multidisciplinary tumor boards are available in all major academic institutions. And I think lung cancer care is becoming more and more multidisciplinary, especially with the new advances of new adjuvant to chemo-immunotherapy and controversies we still have to this point in management of stage III disease. And I think what I find in a multidisciplinary tumor board…

Because I think what I want to build upon as Dr. Bauman statement that she said that times of an essence here, and I think the multi-d tumor board help us make medical decisions on the spot rather than me sending a patient to see a surgeon or sending a patient to see radiation oncologist and sending patients to see interventional radiologist, and then the IR is telling you, “Oh, we can’t do that biopsy, you gotta send it to the pulmonologist.” I think that actually streamlines the patient care. The second tumor board what we have, that maturity of the lung cancer patients actually don’t get presented there, it’s a molecular tumor board. And the reason why we don’t present majority of the lung cancer patients there because management of antigen-driven lung cancer is pretty straightforward.

I think only presentations I would ever make there if they have an unusual mutation that I can’t find any information about, then I need the help of our molecular pathologist, but it is a good avenue for those weird rare molecular abnormalities that I’ve seen in other malignancies and so that is another option. And there’s actually…many institutions have molecular tumor boards as well. We do open our tumor board not to all communities. So we are not as good as you, Dr. Bauman. So only one community practice can join us because they’re kind of part of us, so we don’t usually…we don’t have it open to the whole community, and I think as an academic institution, we probably should strive to have an open tumor boards where everybody can join and listen and present and that’s the most important.

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

I do want to say, we don’t..I must have misspoken, we definitely don’t include community practices. So I do think that that would be a fantastic offering in the sense of some of the…I don’t know that we could do that on a weekly basis, but consider something like on a monthly basis or even a quarterly basis of a true tumor board where people can present cases in real time from community practices. 


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How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved?

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How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer physician-patient communication can sometimes present challenges. Experts Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova and Dr. Jessica Bauman share factors that can create challenges and methods they’ve used to improve their communication and patient care.

See More from Lung Cancer | Empowering Providers to Empower Patients

Related Resources:

Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards

A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards

Methods to Improve Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication

Methods to Improve Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Can you each share some examples from your own practice around improving physician-patient communication that may serve as exemplary for providers that are watching this program? And we’ll start with you, Dr. Bazhenova.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova: 

I think it also has some challenges, because in the current environment of practicing medicine, we are, as physicians, we are pushed to see more patients, it’s all about productivity. So when you do that, something has to give. And a time that we can spend with the patient is limited. And I think it’s important, for myself, as a practice, I have the same, I call it spiel that I give to all my patients. It’s the same picture I write down when I speak and I give that paper to the patients. I’ve had, you know, created some preprinted things that I used to give to the patients. Don’t do it anymore. But I think that’s another thing, have some kind of information that is a patient level that I can give to the patients.

And I think we have to educate the patients as well, either by ourselves or using the platforms that we are exhibiting here, that is outside of our primary institutions. And to make sure that the patients are aware that each one of them who have a stage IV lung cancer, as well as early stage lung cancer needs to be tested for the molecular testing. And kind of put it also have the patient question the physician, did you do that? Was that test done? That’s one part of information.  And I think the second part is, we do have to do better in allowing our patients to get a faster access to us. And we kind of accept the fact that we are going to be working after hours. When the clinic is over, that’s where I’m going to go to my charts, and I’m going to answer my patient’s question.

It’s kind of an intrinsic, is the work of the physician. Hours is…unfortunately, doesn’t really count. There is no limit to that. So whatever it works, like having a nurse educator. We have in our institution, we have…we call her tissue coordinator, but she’s the person who can actually make sure that the tissue is done, she can also make sure that reports are sent to the patient and make sure that patient has ability to ask questions of somebody. And I think the EMR, electronic medical record, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship, I think, with all of us. But one thing that I find it made it much easier for me is to communicate with my patients using my chart and this ability to release the result to the patient by one click of a button, that saves time for me so I can spend that time to actually visit the patient and explain to the patient what needs to be done.

Dr. Nicole Rochster: 

That is awesome, thank you. Do you have anything to add, Dr. Bauman?

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

Yes, yes, I agree that I think that this overall requires a lot of education, and especially when patients come in and they want to know tomorrow or yesterday, actually, what they’re going to get for treatment and what we’re going to start with. And so telling them that actually we still can’t decide for at least another week or two, that in of itself can be challenging. I think the other piece of this that’s always important is, in general, when we’re doing molecular and biomarker testing, we’re looking for changes in the tumor, we’re looking for what we call somatic mutations, but there is also the second concern where on rare occasion, issues with molecular testing can bring up issues with germline testing, meaning some abnormality that’s found that may impact their own familial risk for cancer, and so that of course requires a lot of thought and careful education as well, in addition to the treatment decision-making that we’re really ordering the test to decide upon.


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How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate?

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How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can lung cancer collaboration happen in academic and community settings? Experts Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova and Dr. Jessica Bauman share their perspectives on collaboration challenges and potential ways to decrease these challenges in the future.

See More from Lung Cancer | Empowering Providers to Empower Patients

Related Resources:

Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

How Can Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication Be Improved

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

What Guidelines Exist for Lung Cancer Genomic Biomarker Testing

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

So my next question really has to do with how can lung cancer experts in academic settings partner with, collaborate, work with those experts in the community settings to overcome some of these challenges that you all just talked about as it relates to biomarker testing? So I’ll start with you, Dr. Bauman.

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

So, that’s a million dollar question. I do think there are many opportunities of educational opportunities to continue to educate everybody in terms of lung cancer. I think lung cancer is a very common diagnosis. And so we know that many community providers absolutely deliver excellent lung cancer care. And so making sure that there are many opportunities for them to participate in, either citywide or nationwide educational opportunities for updates on lung cancer. We have in Philadelphia, we actually have an academic, sort of a multi-multidisciplinary, multi-institutional tumor board, thoracic tumor board that happens quarterly, which we invite community providers to to discuss some of the latest literature. Certainly our emails are always available, so we can always bring them, certainly we get many different questions that come in from other providers, but I’m sure we could do a better job. And I’m very curious to hear what Dr. Bazhenova thinks about this as well, because I think it is such a huge challenge.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova: 

I agree with you fully, and I think my two cents here is I think we have to recognize and accept that one size does not fit all in this situation. And whatever works for my institution is probably not going to work for a smaller community practice. But as long as we recognize that this needs to be done and each community practice can work with their stakeholders in the molecular testing pathway, like molecular pathologists, regular pathologists, surgeons. Each institution has power to establish their own internal pathways. Would it be what Dr. Bauman says, reflex testing, which is probably not going to be an option for a majority of the community setting, because they do not have their own NGS. It’s going to be a sendout. Or like in our institutions, we don’t have a reflex molecular testing. It’s us medical oncologists who are ordering it, but we kind of get it on the backside.

We can get the patient in within 24, 48 hours from the consult was put in. And so that’s why we didn’t do the reflex testing, but as the reason we did it is because we sat down as a team and we decided this is what works for us. So I encouraged the community groups again, sitting down saying, okay, the task in hand is lung cancer patient has to have molecular testing at the time of the diagnosis. How are we going to get it, and how are we going to make sure that we are not missing, you know, have some kind of internal QI, and make sure you know what your practice is doing rather than assuming that your practice is doing molecular testing for all the patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Thank you so much. Did you have something you wanted to add, Dr. Bauman?

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

Yeah, I was just going to say, and I think that so many things are happening before they ever see us, that includes a pulmonologist is going in and doing a biopsy, right? Or an interventional radiologist is getting a biopsy. So it has to start way upfront of the actual diagnosis because the, what you want to try to get to capture the information as soon as you can, right? So you don’t want to get just an FNA biopsy, for example, of a liver lesion knowing that three weeks later what you really need is a core biopsy, right? So it really, the path you do, it involves so many different stakeholders when you’re having conversations about how to streamline this for your own institution and practice. 


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Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers

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Building on Lung Cancer Successes for Targetable Oncogenic Drivers from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can recent lung cancer successes be built upon? Experts Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova and Dr. Jessica Bauman explain advances in lung cancer testing and how targeting of oncogenic drivers can impact patient care.

See More from Lung Cancer | Empowering Providers to Empower Patients

Related Resources:

How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate

How Can Lung Cancer Experts in Academic and Community Settings Collaborate

A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards

A Look at Lung Cancer Expert Learnings From Tumor Boards

Methods to Improve Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication

Methods to Improve Lung Cancer Physician-Patient Communication

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

So I’d love for the two of you to talk about some of the successes in testing over the past decade for lung cancer patients. And we’ll start with you this time, Dr. Bazhenova.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova: 

I think our successes actually became our challenges. We have seen an explosion of targetable oncogenic drivers. If you look at the FDA approvals for oncogenic driven therapy, we have a first approval in 2004 and then there was kind of a silence for almost a decade. And then starting in 2014, every year we now have three or four drugs approved. And also those drugs are being approved for the same indication, but different companies. So I think it is very hard for a practicing oncologist who have diseases other than lung cancer to actually keep up with exploding information that they need to know. And I think that’s why I say our success is our challenge, our success is that we are now in lung cancer have 10 oncogenic drivers that we have treatment for.

Our challenge is to remember that there are 10 oncogenic drivers. It’s becoming even more complicated because if you take, for example, an EGFR story, we don’t just need to know that the patient has an EGFR mutation. We need to know what type of EGFR mutation we have, that patient has. And it is no longer three categories. Like even looking in atypical mutations, we now separate out so-called pack mutations, which are treated differently than anything else. So it’s difficult for a practicing physician, or mid level-level practitioner to remember what even to do for lung cancer, but they have to do a breast cancer and colon cancer and everything else. So it is a challenge currently.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

I appreciate you highlighting that. A lot of times it’s like a double-edged sword, right? What are your thoughts, Dr. Bauman, and in terms of the successes as well as some of the challenges?

Dr. Jessica Bauman: 

So I absolutely echo what Dr. Bazhenova is saying in terms of the amazing successes, right? We now have for multiple different populations, we have an oral medication that can treat their cancer with the hope that it keeps that cancer under control for many, many months and for some people even years. And I think the challenge is absolutely keeping track of all of those different mutations and then what is actually targetable. And if you have, is it a mutation? Is it a fusion? Is it… What exactly is it that allows you to then use that targetable therapy? Is certainly one challenge. The other challenge is getting that information as soon as we can get it. So you can imagine, so somebody comes in to see me with a new diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer, right? Their biopsy was done say two weeks at a different hospital, and their first scan was done six weeks ago.

So now they’re already six weeks into the concern of a diagnosis of lung cancer, and they’re symptomatic and they come to see me and say, what am I going to do? And we have to get all of that information as fast as we can, because it completely changes the way we’re going to treat them. And so creating systems, in particular reflex testing systems such that this is sent immediately so that by the time they’re seeing me we already have this information is really important. But that, I think that is sort of at its infancy. At Fox Chase, we’ve worked on our sort of reflex system for a very long time. And it’s still, every time there’s a new approval, it seems like it changes slightly or there’s a new system that we have to think about it. But at the end of the day we also…one of the challenges is making sure that we streamline the processes in which we get this information in the best way we can because tissue can be limited.

There is a lot, making sure that you actually get adequate tissue sampling to be able to test for everything that you need to test for is really important. Then figuring out where to send the testing. Many academic centers have internal panels that they send for molecular testing, but there are so many different companies that advertise doing some kind of molecular testing. And so knowing which of those companies to consider using, what they’re offering, which ones offer RNA sequencing, for example, because that is a particularly important aspect, in addition to DNA sequencing that we need. And so sort of keeping track of all of that is particularly challenging. And then I think the last thing is, I think it’s the needing this information earlier and earlier in a diagnosis.

And so once upon a time, it really was the medical oncologist who could drive this and run the show because it was really, we needed it for somebody with metastatic disease, right? And we’re sort of the captains of the ship per se, when someone has a new diagnosis of metastatic disease. However, now there’s adjuvant therapy for patients who have EGFR mutations after a surgical resection. And so we need, the surgeons also need to really understand that we need this information. And they often are now getting these tests before a medical oncologist even sees the patients. And so it isn’t just medical oncology, it’s also now, it’s going into multiple different specialties who also need to understand what these mutations mean and what to do about them, and then how it influences therapies. 


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HCP Roundtable: Overcoming Lung Cancer Biomarker Testing Challenges

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HCP Roundtable: Overcoming Lung Cancer Biomarker Testing Challenges from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

The lung cancer field continues to experience tremendous growth in precision medicine. Oncologists have more tools to treat lung cancer, but access and language remains a big factor in biomarker testing. Drs. Jessica Bauman and Lyudmila Bazhenova discuss current issues in NSCLC biomarker testing, insights on how providers can explain biomarker testing to their patients and their families, and how academic centers and community physicians can work together to overcome challenges in biomarker testing.

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Related Resources:

EPEP Biomarker Resource Guide

EPEP Biomarker Resource Guide 

Practicing Cultural Humility to Empower Your Patients 

How Do You Empower Patients?

How Do You Empower Patients?

Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Welcome to the Empowering Providers to Empower Patients or EPEP program. I’m Dr. Nicole Rochester, a pediatrician and the founder of Your GPS Doc. In this unique program, we connect leading lung cancer expert voices to discuss enhancing physician patient communication and share decision making in lung cancer care. Some of the questions we’re going to talk about today include, what are the major successes and challenges around biomarker testing? How can experts in academic settings work with those in community settings to overcome challenges in biomarker testing? And also, what are the best practices for discussing and explaining biomarker testing to your lung cancer patients? 

Thank you. I’m thrilled to be joined today by noted lung cancer medical oncologist, Dr. Jessica Bauman from Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and Dr. Luda Bazhenova from UC San Diego Medical Center. Thank you both for joining us in today’s round table.

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

Thanks for having us.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

My pleasure should be here as well.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thankfully, research in lung cancer is ongoing and remains at a fast pace, but with that pace often comes challenges of keeping everyone up to date, providers included. So we have a lot to cover today. So I want to start by just providing a general overview of biomarker testing and lung cancer therapy. So I’m going to start with you, Dr. Bauman. Can you discuss some of the general guidelines for…sorry. So I’m going to start with you, Dr. Bauman. Can you discuss existing guidelines for genomic biomarker testing for lung cancer?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

Sure. I’d be happy to. So genomic and biomarker testing in general has really been at the forefront of many conversations about lung cancer over the course of the last decade or longer, 20 years. Because it has really changed our approach to patient care and individualized the way that we treat and make decisions about patients with lung cancer. And so what this means, is for every single person who has a new diagnosis of lung cancer, essentially everybody is now recommended to have molecular testing on their individual tumor samples to help us decide what treatment decisions are the best for them. Now, it used to be that this was really only recommended for patients with a new diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer, but now we’re seeing this really influenced decision-making earlier on than the metastatic setting.

And so we now have treatment approaches that change based on molecular testing for early stage one cancer as well. And so, although it used to be more of a later stage, necessity, now we really…we really now need the information sooner than ever before. And when we say molecular testing, this is really looking at the individual tumor and what is potentially driving the cancer to grow. So to look for oncogenic drivers that change treatment. So I call this with my patients, I call this the alphabet soup. But this includes, EGFR mutations, ALK, ROS1, RET, HER2 as well as many others that influence the potential treatment options that we have for our patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Awesome, thank you. That is a great overview. Do you have anything to add to that, Dr. Bazhenova?

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:  No, I think that was very nicely summarized. I think an important thing is that we have to test, we cannot guess. We have to know what our patients…what mutations our patients have, and then we have to know what to do with that. That’s kind of a second part of the question.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wonderful. So it sounds like this is really kind of revolutionary in the sense that, like you said, we can now provide very individualized treatment for lung cancer patients. So I’d love for the two of you to talk about some of the successes in testing over the past decade for lung cancer patients. And we’ll start with you this time, Dr. Bazhenova.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

I think our successes actually became our challenges. We have seen an explosion of targetable oncogenic drivers. If you look at the FDA approvals for oncogenic driven therapy, we have a first approval in 2004 and then there was kind of a silence for almost a decade. And then starting in 2014, every year we now have three or four drugs approved. And also those drugs are being approved for the same indication, but different companies. So I think it is very hard for a practicing oncologist who have diseases other than lung cancer to actually keep up with exploding information that they need to know. And I think that’s why I say our success is our challenge, our success is that we are now in lung cancer have 10 oncogenic drivers that we have treatment for.

Our challenge is to remember that there are 10 oncogenic drivers. It’s becoming even more complicated because if you take, for example, an EGFR story, we don’t just need to know that the patient has an EGFR mutation. We need to know what type of EGFR mutation we have, that patient has. And it is no longer three categories. Like even looking in atypical mutations, we now separate out so-called pack mutations, which are treated differently than anything else. So it’s difficult for a practicing physician, or mid-level practitioner to remember what even to do for lung cancer, but they have to do a breast cancer and colon cancer and everything else. So it is a challenge currently.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

I appreciate you highlighting that. A lot of times it’s like a double-edged sword, right? What are your thoughts, Dr. Bauman, and in terms of the successes as well as some of the challenges?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

So I absolutely echo what Dr. Bazhenova is saying in terms of the amazing successes, right? We now have for multiple different populations, we have an oral medication that can treat their cancer with the hope that it keeps that cancer under control for many, many months and for some people even years. And I think the challenge is absolutely keeping track of all of those different mutations and then what is actually targetable. And if you have, is it a mutation? Is it a fusion? Is it… What exactly is it that allows you to then use that targetable therapy? Is certainly one challenge. The other challenge is getting that information as soon as we can get it. So you can imagine, so somebody comes in to see me with a new diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer, right? Their biopsy was done say two weeks at a different hospital, and their first scan was done six weeks ago.

So now they’re already six weeks into the concern of a diagnosis of lung cancer, and they’re symptomatic and they come to see me and say, what am I going to do? And we have to get all of that information as fast as we can, because it completely changes the way we’re going to treat them. And so creating systems, in particular reflex testing systems such that this is sent immediately so that by the time they’re seeing me we already have this information is really important. But that, I think that is sort of at its infancy. At Fox Chase, we’ve worked on our sort of reflex system for a very long time. And it’s still, every time there’s a new approval, it seems like it changes slightly or there’s a new system that we have to think about it. But at the end of the day we also…one of the challenges is making sure that we streamline the processes in which we get this information in the best way we can because tissue can be limited.

There is a lot, making sure that you actually get adequate tissue sampling to be able to test for everything that you need to test for is really important. Then figuring out where to send the testing. Many academic centers have internal panels that they send for molecular testing, but there are so many different companies that advertise doing some kind of molecular testing. And so knowing which of those companies to consider using, what they’re offering, which ones offer RNA sequencing, for example, because that is a particularly important aspect, in addition to DNA sequencing that we need. And so sort of keeping track of all of that is particularly challenging. And then I think the last thing is, I think it’s the needing this information earlier and earlier in a diagnosis.

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

And so once upon a time, it really was the medical oncologist who could drive this and run the show because it was really, we needed it for somebody with metastatic disease, right? And we’re sort of the captains of the ship per se, when someone has a new diagnosis of metastatic disease. However, now there’s adjuvant therapy for patients who have EGFR mutations after a surgical resection. And so we need, the surgeons also need to really understand that we need this information. And they often are now getting these tests before a medical oncologist even sees the patients. And so it isn’t just medical oncology, it’s also now, it’s going into multiple different specialties who also need to understand what these mutations mean and what to do about them, and then how it influences therapies.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wow, you all have really done such a great job highlighting both the successes and the challenges. And it’s a perfect segue into my next question because you just alluded to, Dr. Bauman, this idea of academic medical centers and the challenges that you all are facing in cancer centers. And we know that many patients are receiving their care in the community, and in fact, sometimes it’s this dichotomy between what happens in the academic setting and the community setting that can actually create and perpetuate disparities. So my next question really has to do with how can lung cancer experts in academic settings partner with, collaborate, work with those experts in the community settings to overcome some of these challenges that you all just talked about as it relates to biomarker testing? So I’ll start with you, Dr. Bauman.

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

So, that’s a million dollar question. I do think there are many opportunities of educational opportunities to continue to educate everybody in terms of lung cancer. I think lung cancer is a very common diagnosis. And so we know that many community providers absolutely deliver excellent lung cancer care. And so making sure that there are many opportunities for them to participate in, either citywide or nationwide educational opportunities for updates on lung cancer. We have in Philadelphia, we actually have an academic, sort of a multi-multidisciplinary, multi-institutional tumor board, thoracic tumor board that happens quarterly, which we invite community providers to to discuss some of the latest literature. Certainly our emails are always available, so we can always bring there, certainly we get many different questions that come in from other providers, but I’m sure we could do a better job. And I’m very curious to hear what Dr. Bazhenova thinks about this as well, because I think it is such a huge challenge.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

I agree with you fully, and I think my two cents here is I think we have to recognize and accept that one size does not fit all in this situation. And whatever works for my institution is probably not going to work for a smaller community practice. But as long as we recognize that this needs to be done and each community practice can work with their stakeholders in the molecular testing pathway, like molecular pathologists, regular pathologists, surgeons. Each institution has power to establish their own internal pathways. Would it be what Dr. Bauman says, reflex testing, which is probably not going to be an option for a majority of the community setting because they do not have their own NGS. It’s going to be a sendout. Or like in our institutions, we don’t have a reflex molecular testing. It’s us medical oncologists who are ordering it, but we kind of get it on the backside.

We can get the patient in within 24, 48 hours from the consult was put in. And so that’s why we didn’t do the reflex testing, but as the reason we did it is because we sat down as a team and we decided this is what works for us. So I encouraged the community groups again, sitting down saying, okay, the task in hand is lung cancer patient has to have molecular testing at the time of the diagnosis. How are we going to get it and how are we going to make sure that we are not missing, you know, have some kind of internal QI, and make sure you know what your practice is doing rather than assuming that your practice is doing molecular testing for all the patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thank you so much. Did you have something you wanted to add, Dr. Bauman?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

Yeah, I was just going to say, and I think that so many things are happening before they ever see us, that includes a pulmonologist is going in and doing a biopsy, right? Or an interventional radiologist is getting a biopsy. So it has to start way upfront of the actual diagnosis because the, what you want to try to get to capture the information as soon as you can, right? So you don’t want to get just an FNA biopsy, for example, of a liver lesion knowing that three weeks later what you really need is a core biopsy, right? So it really, the path you do, it involves so many different stakeholders when you’re having conversations about how to streamline this for your own institution and practice.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

So both of you have really touched on the challenges even among physician-to-physician communication and the fact that by virtue of the diagnosis and the treatment, there’s lots of different specialists involved, the timing of which can be very crucial. And so shifting to physician patient communication, which we know is fraught with even more challenges. Can you each share some examples from your own practice around improving physician patient communication that may serve as exemplary for providers that are watching this program? And we’ll start with you, Dr. Bazhenova.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

I think it also has some challenges, because in the current environment of practicing medicine, we are, as physicians, we are pushed to see more patients, it’s all about productivity. So when you do that, something has to give. And a time that we can spend with the patient is limited. And I think it’s important, for myself, as a practice, I have the same, I call it spiel that I give to all my patients. It’s the same picture I write down when I speak and I give that paper to the patients. I’ve had, you know, created some preprinted things that I used to give to the patients. Don’t do it anymore. But I think that’s another thing, have some kind of information that is a patient level that I can give to the patients.

And I think we have to educate the patients as well, either by ourselves or using the platforms that we are exhibiting here, that is outside of our primary institutions. And to make sure that the patients are aware that each one of them who have a stage IV lung cancer, as well as early stage lung cancer needs to be tested for the molecular testing. And kind of put it also have the patient question the physician, did you do that? Was that test done? That’s one part of information.  And I think the second part is, we do have to do better in allowing our patients to get a faster access to us. And we kind of accept the fact that we are going to be working after hours. When the clinic is over, that’s where I’m going to go to my charts, and I’m going to answer my patient’s question.

It’s kind of an intrinsic, is the work of the physician. Hours is…unfortunately, doesn’t really count. There is no limit to that. So whatever it works, like having a nurse educator. We have in our institution, we have…we call her tissue coordinator, but she’s the person who can actually make sure that the tissue is done, she can also make sure that reports are sent to the patient and make sure that patient has ability to ask questions of somebody. And I think the EMR, electronic medical record, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship, I think, with all of us. But one thing that I find it made it much easier for me is to communicate with my patients using my chart and this ability to release the result to the patient by one click of a button, that saves time for me so I can spend that time to actually visit the patient and explain to the patient what needs to be done.

Dr. Nicole Rochster:

That is awesome, thank you. Do you have anything to add, Dr. Bauman?

Dr. Jessica Buaman:

In terms of challenges of discussions with patients?

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Yeah, and best practices. So Dr. Bazhenova mentioned using portal, which I think is awesome, and really educating patients in a way that allows them to ask questions of their providers. Any other insights or tactics that you use?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

Yes, yes, I agree that I think that this overall requires a lot of education, and especially when patients come in and they want to know tomorrow or yesterday, actually, what they’re going to get for treatment and what we’re going to start with. And so telling them that actually we still can’t decide for at least another week or two, that in of itself can be challenging. I think the other piece of this that’s always important is, in general, when we’re doing molecular and biomarker testing, we’re looking for changes in the tumor, we’re looking for what we call somatic mutations, but there is also the second concern where on rare occasion, issues with molecular testing can bring up issues with germline testing, meaning some abnormality that’s found that may impact their own familial risk for cancer, and so that of course requires a lot of thought and careful education as well, in addition to the treatment decision-making that we’re really ordering the test to decide upon.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Really good point. Because if there’s a familial aspect, like you said, that brings up an entirely another layer of discussion and worry and concern as well. Well, Dr. Bazhenova I know that you lead a weekly tumor board for lung cancer, and I’d love to learn more about some of the things that you can share that may be insightful for other lung cancer experts as a result of the tumor board.

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

At UC San Diego, we actually have two tumor boards where lung cancer patients can be presented, one is just a traditional multidisciplinary thoracic tumor board, which is attended by a medical oncologist surgeons, radiation oncologist, pathologist, interventional people, clinical trial coordinators. And I think this is not unique to UC San Diego. The multidisciplinary tumor boards are available in all major academic institutions. And I think lung cancer care is becoming more and more multi-disciplinary, especially with the new advances of new adjuvant to chemo immunotherapy and controversies we still have to this point in management of stage three disease. And I think what I find in a multidisciplinary tumor board…

Because I think what I want to build upon as Dr. Bauman statement that she said that times of an essence here, and I think the multi-d tumor board help us make medical decisions on the spot rather than me sending a patient to see a surgeon or sending a patient to see radiation oncologist and sending patients to see interventional radiologist, and then the IR is telling you, “Oh, we can’t do that biopsy, you gotta send it to the pulmonologist.” I think that actually streamlines the patient care. The second tumor board what we have, that maturity of the lung cancer patients actually don’t get presented there, it’s a molecular tumor board. And the reason why we don’t present majority of the lung cancer patients there because management of antigen-driven lung cancer is pretty straightforward.

I think only presentations I would ever make there if they have an unusual mutation that I can’t find any information about, then I need the help of our molecular pathologist, but it is a good avenue for those weird rare molecular abnormalities that I’ve seen in other malignancies and so that is another option. And there’s actually…many institutions have molecular tumor boards as well. We do open our tumor board not to all communities. So we are not as good as you, Dr. Bauman. So only one community practice can join us because they’re kind of part of us, so we don’t usually…we don’t have it open to the whole community, and I think as an academic institution, we probably should strive to have an open tumor boards where everybody can join and listen and present and that’s the most important.

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

I do want to say, we don’t..I must have misspoken, we definitely don’t include community practices. So I do think that that would be a fantastic offering in the sense of some of the… I don’t know that we could do that on a weekly basis, but consider something like on a monthly basis or even a quarterly basis of a true tumor board where people can present cases in real time from community practices.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Awesome, yeah, I think based on everything that you all have shared, that would definitely be an added benefit for sure. So circling back to communicating with patients, you all have already shared the challenges related to productivity and the limited time that we have with patients and some of the things that you have been able to institute. I wonder if either of you or both of you have any thoughts around unique things that you’ve implemented that have allowed you to really connect and communicate with your patients in spite of these time limitations. So I know we talked about using the portal, which is an amazing resource. Are there any unique things that you all have implemented in real time, like face-to-face, when communicating with patients?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

So I would say we did a pilot study that has not been implemented full time, and really I think we’re still working on how to best implement something like this but we did a pilot study using sort of educational materials, and this whole sort of pathway and educational system in coordination with our nurse navigators, where you could send sort of a prescription to the patient of reading material or of educational material, as they’re going along. And so, with the idea that early on that one of those prescriptions would be more information about molecular testing and biomarker testing, decision making, all of those types of things.

We did a small pilot study to incorporate that, which on the surface is fantastic but it was surprisingly challenging to do, to actually implement. And I think that was…we were doing this, again, in collaboration with one of the researchers, the nurse researchers at our institution, and we hit more barriers than expected, because I think we all, as you say, we all want to educate, we all want to make sure that our patients understand and get the information that they need, but the practicality of doing that really successfully and in a streamlined way but that’s also consistent across providers across the institution, it’s a challenge.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Yeah, I can imagine. Are there a chance to extend the pilot or to maybe modify it based on what you all learn from the initial study?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

I think that that’s… It’s certainly in discussion about how to best implement something like this. Part of that is… Again, sort of systems change. The role of the clinic nurse, the nurse navigators has changed a little bit and so even how we envision implementation is going to need to shift somewhat.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wonderful. What about you, Dr. Bazhenova? Any pilot studies or any other maybe tips and tricks that you employ independently?

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

Yeah, we haven’t had any pilot studies but I think the more I think about it…so the challenge of discussing those molecular testing with the patients is the fact that majority of those molecular testing discussions happen in stage four patients and majority of those discussions happen during the first visit for a patient with stage four lung cancer where we just discussed that this is an incurable cancer with limited life expectancy. And then how much does our patient actually absorb anything else we said afterwards is still remain to be seen. And I actually have seen like when I talk to the patient because they are so understandably fixated on their prognosis and survival, because it’s going to affect their lives that after that my patient asked me a question that I know I’ve discussed it already because I have my spiel.

I tell the same thing to everybody. And I think now kind of thinking about it out loud after that, during that discussion and maybe we could set up another appointment with a nurse practitioner afterwards, that after the patient kind of already digested all that information, to go over again the management of the molecular abnormalities. And one thing I actually want to highlight and build upon something that Bauman said before, that in those patients we actually usually wait for the molecular testing to come back before we start their therapy. And it is much easier to just prescribe chemotherapy immunotherapy for those patients.

But then you’re going to run into issues of toxicity because if you gave immunotherapy before you give for example EGFR TKI and some ALK TKIs, you can actually going to run into toxicity and you can permanently prevent your patients from continue on tyrosine kinase inhibitors. And so that’s why this is an information that not all oncologists, especially those who practice in a tobacco belt where they don’t see a lot of oncogenic driven patients, they might not be aware of that. And I think how do we pass that information to the physicians, and also how do we pass that information to the patients that there is an easy way, but easy way in this situation is not the right way?

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wow, so many competing priorities. This has been a fascinating conversation. It’s time for us to wrap up but I really want to thank both of you for offering your insight and your expertise. And I’d love to get some closing thoughts. We’ve shared, you all have shared so much about the challenges, as well as the successes, you’ve offered some insight into some things that can probably be further developed in the future. So as we wrap up, I’ll start with you, Dr. Bauman, what are some closing thoughts that you would share with the providers that are watching this program?

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

I think I would again highlight just how imperative it is to create systems early on to identify how you’re going to get molecular testing on all of your lung cancer patients, and then have a good tracking system to make sure that it’s incorporated in your notes that you have potentially a database within your practice, so that you really are aware of the different molecular abnormalities that your patients have and then potential treatment options that they have later. And that to understand that this really is a multi disciplinary approach where everybody needs to understand the importance of adequate tissue, and how it can influence decision-making, even now with somebody with a stage one lung cancer.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thank you so much. What about you, Dr. Bazhenova?

Dr. Lyudmila Bazhenova:

I fully agree with Dr. Bauman. So the one thing, kind of to add upon, as we’ve talked about before that molecular abnormalities and lung cancer becoming very complex NTRK point mutations is not the same thing as NTRK fusion. One responds to NTRK therapy and the other does not. And for every physician, you know what, if you’re using the molecular testing companies outside of your own institutions, just be aware that that molecular testing company does have a molecular pathologist on staff that you can actually talk to, and they do respond and they do reply. So if you have a mutation that you’re like, “I don’t know what that is.” Pick up the phone and call that company and they will be very, very happy to discuss the mutation with you and just highlight what is an appropriate treatment for that patient.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thank you. Thank you both so much. Just to summarize, I mean, I have learned a lot which I always do in these programs, and to summarize, you all have spoken about the importance of biomarker testing, the evolution of testing and the importance and how it’s used now for not just late stage but early stage cancer. You’ve talked about the complexities associated with biomarker testing and really the need to fully adopt a multidisciplinary approach, not just as it relates to diagnosis and treatment, but even as it relates to communicating with patients and bringing in those nurse educators and those navigators and making sure that we take a multidisciplinary approach.

And you’ve also shared some insight about tips for communicating with patients, despite the time limitations that we face in the clinical environment and so I’m just really thankful for your time today. Really grateful for your expertise, and I want to thank all of you for tuning into this Empowering Providers to Empower Patients program. Have a wonderful day.

Dr. Jessica Bauman:

Thank you.


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How Is Lung Cancer Treated?

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How Is Lung Cancer Treated? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer expert Dr. Jyoti Patel provides an overview of lung cancer treatment approaches, including radiation therapies, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery.

Jyoti Patel, MD, is Medical Director of Thoracic Oncology and Assistant Director for Clinical Research at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. She is also Associate Vice-Chair for Clinical Research and a Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Patel is a leader in thoracic oncology, focusing her efforts on the development and evaluation of novel molecular markers and therapeutics in patients battling non-small cell lung cancer. Learn more about Dr. Patel.

See More from Thrive Lung Cancer

Related Resources:

Understanding Lung Cancer Treatment Goals

Collaborating on Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions With Your Team

Personalized Medicine: Making Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions


Transcript:

Katherine:

I’d like to walk through the types of treatments that are used today to treat lung cancer. Let’s start with surgery.  

Dr. Patel:

We think about local therapies as things like surgery. So, surgery has evolved, again, significantly.  

Now with videoscopic approaches and robotic approaches we’re able to remove a tumor either with a larger incision – more traditional incision – or some of the smaller incisions. And the goal of doing the surgery is often to want to diagnosis the cancer. So, to do a biopsy. But when it’s used in terms of cancer treatment, the goal of surgery is to get a complete resection.  

So, we only do surgery if we can remove a tumor and mass with clear margins and not compromise other vital functions. Sometimes we’ll, again, do a more palliative surgery if we need to, if there’s a problem that’s causing significant symptoms. But in that case, the surgery is generally not improving the survival of the patient. It’s trying to palliate symptoms.  

Katherine:

Mm-hmm. What about other types of therapy? 

Dr. Patel:

Other localized therapies predominately include radiation therapy. And, again, radiation has significantly changed over the past years. We’ve been able to incorporate new technologies, truly target tumors, and to minimize toxicity, with two kinds of radiation. Photon therapy, which is more traditional therapy, and proton therapy, which we see administered in a very small subset of patients.  

Primarily, photon therapy, we treat tumors, sometimes over many weeks, to decrease toxicity versus sometimes we give one or two doses of radiation in a high-dose fashion that’s very targeted.  So, often for the chest in stage III cancer, for example, a patient may end up getting six weeks of radiation Monday to Friday with chemotherapy.  

And that, again, is curative intent. It’s to ablate the cancer and to provide the best local treatment. 

Often, we’ll do something called stereotactic radiation therapy. And that is if there is a discreet mass, often that could be if the cancer is metastasized to the brain, we can give very targeted radiation there, again, to ablate the tumor.  

In patients who may not be candidates for surgery because lung surgery is a big deal, right? Removing part of your lung can lead to morbidity in someone with other medical issues. Sometimes we can use pinpoint radiation in the lung and see really good outcomes for patients with good disease control.  

Katherine:

You’re also using chemotherapy still, I would imagine? 

Dr. Patel:

The other part of treatment for lung cancer are systemic therapies. And there a number of systemic therapies. So, I sort of break it down into three major parts. One is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy remains a backbone of treatment for lung cancer.  

It’s a lot more tolerable and much more personalized than ever before. Often chemotherapy can be given to patients without significant toxicities. Not everyone loses their hair. Not everyone has neuropathy. Often, I have patients who are working and taking care of their families on chemotherapy. So, it is a good and very reasonable option. But two things that we’re really most excited about – and I think have changed the field most dramatically – are targeted therapies and immunotherapies.  

Katherine:

Mm-hmm.  

Dr. Patel:

These targeted therapies are rationally designed molecules or antibodies that block proteins that may be overexpressed in lung cancer.  

So, some of them are the byproducts of mutated genes that are upregulated and causing a cancer to grow. Others may just be that we’re seeing a high level of protein expression on the cancer cell. But these targeted therapies preferentially bind to their targets that are present on cancer cells and not so much normal cells. Because of this, often there is less toxicity to normal cells. But because we can find specific targets – and the best targets are ones that are only expressed on cancer cells.  

But because we can find a direct target, sometimes we’re able to design drugs that may have significant efficacy. So, 80 percent or 90 percent of people who have a particular target and are able to get a targeted therapy may have a response to treatment. Targeted therapy can be great for some patients. And patients may be on oral medications, sometimes for years, to control their cancer.  

The other real game-changer in the past decade for lung cancer has been the integration of immunotherapy. Approved immunotherapies currently are primarily antibodies that we give to patients. And these antibodies block proteins that are expressed by cancer cells which downregulate the immune system. By shutting down these proteins, your own immune system is able to kind of re-see the cancer cell and kill it.  

And so, now we know in patients with more advanced disease that immunotherapy or immunotherapy with chemotherapy leads to better outcomes than we’ve ever seen. We also use immunotherapy for patients with stage III lung cancer after chemotherapy and radiation. And this improves their survival significantly.  

And most recently, we’ve now integrated immunotherapy after surgery for patients with early-staged disease to decrease their chance of relapse from cancer.   

Katherine:

So, are there options for relapsed patients? 

Dr. Patel:

So, absolutely. Most of our therapies in the metastatic setting work for some time. And then cancer is a difficult adversary. It figures out how to overcome whatever strategy we’re using and becomes resistant. When that happens, often we need to change course. We need to try a new therapy. We have a number of therapies that we’re looking at in the first- and second-line settings. And we’re trying to understand best therapies for subsequent lines of treatment.  

Generally, I say treatment is appropriate if you’re feeling pretty well, right? If you’re able to tolerate treatment, then the likelihood that you would be able to benefit from therapy is significant. How that changes over time weighs heavily on our decision. So, if someone’s having more fatigue or more symptoms from their cancer, it may be that even a little bit of toxicity proves too much.  

Whereas if someone is feeling still really good, we may be willing to say, okay, I’m going to take a little bit more of a risk for the benefit of improved cancer control.  

Understanding Lung Cancer Treatment Goals

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Understanding Lung Cancer Treatment Goals from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer expert Dr. Jyoti Patel explains small cell lung cancer versus non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and how treatment goals may vary by disease stage and patient factors. 

Jyoti Patel, MD, is Medical Director of Thoracic Oncology and Assistant Director for Clinical Research at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. She is also Associate Vice-Chair for Clinical Research and a Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Patel is a leader in thoracic oncology, focusing her efforts on the development and evaluation of novel molecular markers and therapeutics in patients battling non-small cell lung cancer. Learn more about Dr. Patel here: Dr. Patel.

See More from Thrive Lung Cancer

Related Resources:

Why Lung Cancer Patient Advocacy Is Essential

Personalized Medicine: Making Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions

Collaborating on Lung Cancer Treatment Decisions With Your Team


Transcript:

Katherine:

Before we get into treatment though, I’d like you to walk us through the types of lung cancer if you would.  

Dr. Patel:

Sure. So, over 200,000 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year. And we break lung cancer down into two major diagnoses. So, the more common one is non-small cell lung cancer. The less common one, which accounts for 13 percent of diagnoses, is small cell lung cancer. Those are descriptive terms but don’t really go beyond that. It’s, essentially, what do the cells look like under the microscope? We know that these two behave very differently. Small cell lung cancer tends to be a cancer which can move a little bit more quickly. It tends to be more aggressive. 

We have certain treatment regimens that are appropriate. Non-small cell lung cancer is one which we further subdivide into adenocarcinoma, squamous cell cancer, or large neuroendocrine cancer. And we treat those a little bit more similarly with different local therapies and different systemic agents.  

Katherine:

Okay. How would you define treatment goals for people with lung cancer? 

Dr. Patel:

So, we hope that the number of patients that we find with earlier stage disease increases as we now at least have evidence to do screening for people who are at high risk. So, for patients with early-stage disease, which we really define as stage I and stage II – so, cancer that’s limited to the lobe of a lung – our best treatment options are surgery and sometimes radiation in appropriate patients. And for those patients, we think that treatment is discreet and curative.  

For the third of patients who present with stage III disease or locally-advanced disease – and here we’ve seen significant advancements with the integration of immunotherapies, improvements in surgery, and radiation. Their treatment course tends to be a bit longer but, again, our intent is curative. So, the cancer has discreet therapy, we complete it, and then patients are in survivorship mode, in which we’re following them periodically.  

Unfortunately, still, a large number of patients present with more advanced disease. Stage IV disease or metastatic disease. Those are all sort of interchangeable. And treatment for those patients is about controlling the cancer. Often, you’ll hear the word “palliative.” So, the goal of treatment is to control the cancer, to decrease the burden of cancer, and to help patients live longer. Certainly, again, with our advancements of immunotherapies and targeted therapies, patients are living longer than ever before.  

And in some patients, it really becomes a chronic disease in which checkups can be periodically done or patients can be monitored off of treatment for long periods.  

Katherine:

Mm-hmm. Do treatment goals vary by lung cancer type?   

Dr. Patel:

So, the goal of cancer treatment is always to make patients live longer and to make sure that that quality of that survival is the best it can be. So, that’s always our overlying goal. For patients with early disease or early stage – stage I to III non-small cell lung cancer – is something we call limited stage. Small cell lung cancer, the intent is, again, curative. For patients with more advanced disease, we tend to think about the cancer as something that we control, that we see a good response to hopefully, and watch patients over time.  

There are a subset of patients with more advanced disease that have really significantly better outcomes. We call these sort of patients “super survivors.” And we hope to make that number greater as we incorporate new science into their treatment paradigms. 

Katherine:

What is the role of patients in making treatment decisions? 

Dr. Patel:

I think all treatment decisions are patient-focused.  

So, again, understanding someone’s goals of treatment are important. But understanding the context in which the cancer is happening. So, the cancer is part of a patient that has a really full life. Family. Work. Other medical comorbidities. Things that they prioritize. And so, having open discussion about the likelihood of achieving curative therapy or what the risks and benefit ratios are in palliative therapy are absolutely essential to having transparent and honest communication with patients. But it is also optimistic and compassionate.  

How Can Biomarkers Help With Lung Cancer Treatment?

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How Can Biomarkers Help With Lung Cancer Treatment? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Biomarkers can assist with lung cancer treatment, but how are they used exactly? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai explains what is examined in biomarkers and how they aid treatment of specific population groups.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

How Do Lung Cancer Patients Benefit From MRD Testing?

How Can Specific Biomarkers Impact Lung Cancer Progression?

What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

We know that no two lung cancers are the same. Can you explain to the audience how biomarkers help with lung cancer treatment and they can be so important? 

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, we have different…as I say, we are looking at specific characteristics from the tumor when I’m referring to genomic alterations that I’m not referring to something that you can get from your family and bring to your descendants. So I’m talking about mutations that are occurring inside the tumors and only for the tumor, and so affecting only the subject that has this patient that has this alteration. So these biomarkers are an important way to identify populations that we can treat specifically, and I would like to be a little bit more specific on that. We have some of the alterations, for example, one of the mutations that we call EGFR or epidermal growth factor receptor mutation that is supported in different populations in different frequencies. For example, if we have patients that are with an Asiatic origin, we have there the possibility to have a…and I’m referring, for example, Chinese, Japanese, this area of the East Asia, we have a hyper-prevalence of these mutations in around 50 percent of the patients with lung cancer, non-squamous we’d say this is another characteristic of the tumor can have this specific alteration. If we are moving, for example to Latinos, the pains of the areas of Latinos they are coming from, if you have Mexican or, for example, Peruvian, they have also due to their ancestry, they are similar to the Asiatic population, 40 percent we’re going to white populations and Anglo-Saxons or Europeans, they have around 7 to 15 percent  according to the different regions. 

African Americans within 15 to 20 percent. So these kinds of alterations are giving us the opportunity to treat and we have nowadays inhibitors and that’s drugs that are from first, second and third generation, so we were evolving in January, this pharmaceutical in January to develop all drugs that are able to penetrate in the brain and acting not only in the tumor, but also in brain metastases. And patients who have this mutation, for example, are treated in first line, in front line, or the first treatment that they receive are pills, no chemotherapy. So for this reason, and that is something that is important because when we know that patients, when they start this journey of lung cancer diagnosis before they see an oncologist, they were struggling to get the diagnosis and then we’re passing through several doctors from the general practitioner or to the emergency room, going to CT scan and then a biopsy then a pulmonologist until they get the diagnosis, it’s a big period of time sometimes that we are very nervous because we want to each patient to have a treatment as soon as possible, and sometimes when they arrive to us, we say they need to wait until we have the results of these biomarkers. 

So it’s difficult to understand, I put in the place of the patients and the families are really difficult to understand that I was passing a lot, I went here, I came here and I want your treatment right away, but this period that we are asking to wait is really important, because we will have information that can change radically the treatment and the history of these patients. So one of the problems that we have in America is the lack of testing, so we have all the tools to test the patients, but if we are looking at some of the statistics, 50 percent of the patients have been tested. 39 percent if we are moving to groups, for example, of AfricanAmericans, so we need to be very careful that don’t push to get the treatment very quickly without having all the elements to this thing, which kind of treatment is the most adequate for the patient. 

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

That is such important information, and I really appreciate that, I appreciate it. That you put it in the perspective of the patients and family members. And that grueling, long wait, long time to diagnose this, and finally you’re in front of a specialist and the perception is that, Okay, now I’m going to get this treatment that I need, and then like you said to hear, now you have to wait a little bit longer, but also to understand that that wait is important to make sure that you get the treatment that is meant for your specific type of cancer, I think that is so incredibly important.

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

And believe me, we are trying to push as well from the that there are, unfortunately, technical times that we cannot overcome that are for testing and for having these results, and we can do that by like I said liquid biopsy, but also tissue biopsy, so we are sending the tissue that the patients gave for a biopsy in a biopsy or in a resection when they have surgery. We take these small biopsies and we send them for analysis and take longer sometimes, so it’s a pity and we know, but it’s the only way to go for the right treatment. 

What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates?

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What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

With lung cancer research advances, what are the latest treatment updates? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai explains treatment and monitoring advances and shares about lung cancer types that need more research funding.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

How Can Biomarkers Help With Lung Cancer Treatment?

How Can Specific Biomarkers Impact Lung Cancer Progression?

How Can Drug Resistance Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Are there any other exciting updates that patients and families should know about related to lung cancer, maybe things that are in the works that we may hear about in 2023?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, I said, for example, liquid biopsy I was mentioning liquid biopsy, and we are focused obviously, and in patients that have advanced disease or when they have this disease that is already confirmed. But we are now moving the tools that we have to the dedication of cancer using liquid biopsy from the very beginning, so we can use a minimal residual disease, that is patients after the surgery. And I think I hear answering one of the questions that we have in the chat that this minimal residual disease is the quantity of two more that sometimes we are not able to see in the images or is very tiny, and we have equivocal information, the possibility to discover the patients that after surgery, have the possibility to recurrence or have come back of the disease is really important.  

And also we are looking for early detection of lung cancer trying to identify patients with the high-risk populations that they are maybe having the opportunity to be in lung cancer screening because they are smokers, or because they have all the characteristics on top of this model that we can also use the liquid biopsy there. But one of the most important messages that I want to say, because I mentioned it here smokers, and I want to remind you that we have a big proportion of patients around 20 to 25 percent of the patients that they never smoked and that they can develop lung cancer. So we have a motto, we say if you have a lung, you can have it because we want to break this stigma that lung cancer has the only patients who are smoking, obviously smoking and tobacco are related highly with lung cancer. 

But also we have patients that are second-hand smokers or they have other causes of lung cancer. So we need to be aware and we need to try to get attention for that because, in this special population of non-smokers, we know that there is a special characteristic that we can treat them completely different, so it’s very important that we identify those patients as well.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

I really appreciate you sharing that, Dr. Rolfo, because as I’m sure you know, there’s a lot of stigma associated with lung cancer and the assumption that if you have lung cancer, then that automatically means that you are a smoker. And now that we know that people who smoke, those are challenges. But to just acknowledge that not everybody with lung cancer is someone who is a smoker, and also that the approach, the treatment approach may be different, so I really appreciate you pointing that out.

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

And actually, Dr. Rochester, you know this stigma was causing several domino effects. We have less funding for research, we have less support from the community sometimes like other tumors have, for example, breast cancer. So if we are looking specifically in lung cancer, the quantity of women that are dying or are going to a diagnosis of lung cancer, it’s very impressive, but actually it’s killing more people sometimes than other tumors. So we need to be very careful with this stigma because we need…and this is a call for action, now we need more funds, we need more support from the community, because this is a very important area that will need research. 

How Can Drug Resistance Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

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How Can Drug Resistance Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Drug resistance can develop for some lung cancer patients, but is there impact to non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai explains drug resistance, patients who may be at-risk for this issue, and monitoring that is performed for optimal treatment.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

How Can Biomarkers Help With Lung Cancer Treatment?

How Can Specific Biomarkers Impact Lung Cancer Progression?

How Can Lung Cancer Disparities Be Addressed?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

What have we learned about drug resistance as it relates to non-small cell lung cancer? Are there any new developments in that area?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, obviously the patients of the…as I just commented, we have different patients with different needs and different scenarios, so we are now fragmenting a lot of the diseases, and we have actually different diseases. And one big disease that is the lung cancer, so now we are treating patients in a different way. And some patients have, for example, patients who are under treatment with targeted therapies, they can develop mechanics of resistance that we can nowadays not only identify but also treat. 

So we can treat and change the recurrence of these patients. One of the tools that we are using for that is liquid biopsy, for example, that is this blood draw that we are going for the patients, and actually, we are trying to do this determination from the very beginning and also monitoring the patients after we have this information to see if we are able to determine the mechanics of resistance, see also the outcomes of some of the therapies and change the treatment when it’s necessary. In immunotherapy, we have alterations that are resistant or refractory, that is another way of definitions so refractory we say patients that are not responding during the treatment and resistance of patients that or simply patients that are after the treatment having a progression in a very short time, so we need to identify these two categories and try to treat them in different ways that we have armamentarium for that as well. 

Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape Overview

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Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape Overview from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer treatments have been rapidly expanding, so what are the current options? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai outlines the lung cancer treatment landscape and which patients might benefit most from some treatments.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

How Can Lung Cancer Disparities Be Addressed?

How Can Drug Resistance Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Now, let’s delve into this very important topic, how can I get the best lung cancer care? And, Dr. Rolfo, we’re going to start with an overview of the lung cancer treatment landscape. We know that this landscape is rapidly changing and keeping up with the pace of developments could be a challenge not only for doctors, but certainly for patients and family members, so I was hoping that you could give us an overview of the current lung cancer treatment landscape.

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

In the last year, lung cancer treatment was changing radically. We have actually, including some of their new concepts as precision medicine or personalized medicine, that we have actually different therapies that are specifically for some group of patients, that they have specific alterations in their tumors.  And when I’m talking about alterations, I refer to mutations, genomic alterations that can be targeted nowadays with specific medications, and currently, some of them are actually, the majority of them are actually pills, for example. So it was changing radically, and we are not using it like before chemotherapy for everyone. Another area of important interest was the introduction of immunotherapy, this is also an important tool for fighting cancer. And there you have a substance that are administered generally, all of them are intravenous, and this is the principle of that is to await from your own inner system, from the patient immune system, they are the tools to fight against the cancer. 

So it’s a very innovative way to approach cancer, and this is…the good thing is that these two approaches targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and also still obviously the combination with chemotherapy in some of the case with immunotherapy, we can use not only metastatic patients, so in patients who have advanced disease, but also we can use in patients who have earlier stage that they were operated, for example, and we want to prevent that this patient is not going to a further process of cancer metastases, or there are several, several innovations. Then we have innovations that are coming also from local treatments and we call local treatments the one that, for example, surgery or radiation, we have new technologies also that are arriving there, and the combination sometimes with the medical treatment or systemic treatments that are going everywhere that is the description of systemic are helping these patients to have not recurrence and improving. Actually, lung cancer survival was really improving in the last years, and we are very excited by that because, unfortunately, it’s very still an aggressive disease that we were able to change with all this armamentarium the prognosis of these patients. 

How Can I Get the Best Lung Cancer Care?

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How Can I Get the Best Lung Cancer Care? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can lung cancer patients access optimal care? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai and Dr. Nicole Rochester discuss the latest lung cancer treatments and research, lung cancer testing, equitable care, and patient-centered care for the best health outcomes.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape Overview

How Do Lung Cancer Patients Benefit From MRD Testing?

What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Hello and welcome. I’m Dr. Nicole Rochester, I’m a pediatrician, a professional health advocate, and your host for today’s Patient Empowerment Network program. We are so happy that you tuned in. How can you access the best possible lung cancer care? What do the latest combination therapies mean for you? Should you consider a clinical trial as a path to enhancing your lung cancer care? This Best Lung Cancer Care program focuses on providing actionable steps to achieving equitable care and connecting to patient-centered care on your path to empowerment. We are joined today by international lung cancer expert, Dr. Christian Rolfo, Professor of Medicine and Associate Director for Clinical Research in the Center for Thoracic Oncology at the Tisch Cancer Institute. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Rolfo.

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Thank you, Dr. Rochester, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Wonderful. I’m looking forward to our conversation. Now, following this program, you will receive a survey and we would be thrilled to get your feedback because this helps inform future lung cancer programs we produce. Please remember that this program is not a substitute for seeking medical care, so please be sure to connect with your healthcare team regarding the best options for your care. Now, let’s delve into this very important topic, how can I get the best lung cancer care? And, Dr. Rolfo, we’re going to start with an overview of the lung cancer treatment landscape. We know that this landscape is rapidly changing and keeping up with the pace of developments could be a challenge not only for doctors, but certainly for patients and family members, so I was hoping that you could give us an overview of the current lung cancer treatment landscape.

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

In the last year, lung cancer treatment was changing radically. We have actually, including some of their new concepts as precision medicine or personalized medicine, that we have actually different therapies that are specifically for some group of patients, that they have specific alterations in their tumors. And when I’m talking about alterations I refer to mutations, genomic alterations that can be targeted nowadays with specific medications, and currently, some of them are actually, the majority of them are actually pills, for example. So it was changing radically and we are not using it like before chemotherapy for everyone. Another area of important interest was the introduction of immunotherapy, this is also an important tool for fighting cancer, and there you have a substance that are administered generally, all of them are intravenous, and this is the principle of that is to await from your own inner system, from the patient immune system, they are the tools to fight against the cancer, so it’s a very innovative way to approach cancer, and this is.

The good thing is that these two approaches targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and also still obviously the combination with chemotherapy in some of the case with immunotherapy, we can use not only metastatic patients, so in patients who have advanced disease, but also we can use in patients who have earlier stage that they were operated, for example, and we want to prevent that this patient is not going to a further process of cancer metastases, or there are several, several innovations. Then we have innovations that are coming also from local treatments and we call local treatments the one that, for example, surgery or radiation, we have new technologies also that are arriving there, and the combination sometimes with the medical treatment or systemic treatments that are going everywhere that is the description of systemic are helping these patients to have not recurrence and improving. Actually, lung cancer survival was really improving in the last years, and we are very excited by that because, unfortunately, it’s very still an aggressive disease that we were able to change with all this armamentarium the prognosis of these patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wow, that’s a lot. I mean it’s exciting to hear that there are so many new developments on the horizon and that so much has happened just in the last year as it relates to therapy. What have we learned about drug resistance as it relates to non-small cell lung cancer? Are there any new developments in that area?

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

Yeah, obviously the patients of the…as I just commented, we have different patients with different needs and different scenarios, so we are now fragmenting a lot of the diseases and we have actually different diseases, and one big disease that is the lung cancer, so now we are treating patients in a different way. And some patients have, for example, patients who are under treatment with targeted therapies, they can develop mechanics of resistance that we can nowadays not only identify but also treat. 

So we can treat and change the recurrence of these patients. One of the tools that we are using for that is liquid biopsy, for example, that is this blood draw that we are going for the patients, and actually, we are trying to do this determination from the very beginning and also monitoring the patients after we have this information to see if we are able to determine the mechanics of resistance, see also the outcomes of some of the therapies and change the treatment when it’s necessary. In immunotherapy, we have alterations that are resistant or refractory, that is another way of definitions so refractory we say patients that are not responding during the treatment and resistance of patients that or simply patients that are after the treatment having a progression in a very short time, so we need to identify these two categories and try to treat them in different ways that we have armamentarium for that as well.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Wonderful, thank you for that. So you’ve mentioned a lot about updates, are there any other exciting updates that patients and families should know about related to lung cancer, maybe things that are in the works that we may hear about in 2023?

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

Yeah, I said, for example, liquid biopsy I was mentioning liquid biopsy, and we are focused obviously, and in patients that have advanced disease or when they have this disease that is already confirmed. But we are now moving the tools that we have to the dedication of cancer using liquid biopsy from the very beginning, so we can use a minimal residual disease that is patients after the surgery. And I think I hear answering one of the questions that we have in the chat that this minimal residual disease is the quantity of two more that sometimes we are not able to see in the images or is very tiny, and we have equivocal information, the possibility to discover the patients that after surgery, have the possibility to recurrence or have come back of the disease is really important. 

And also we are looking for early detection of lung cancer trying to identify patients with the high-risk populations that they are maybe having the opportunity to be in lung cancer screening because they are smokers, or because they have all the characteristics on top of this model that we can also use the liquid biopsy there. But one of the most important messages that I want to say, because I mentioned it here smokers and I want to remind you that we have a big proportion of patients around 20 to 25 percent of the patients that they never smoked and that they can develop lung cancer, so we have a motto, we say if you have a lung, you can have it because we want to break this stigma that lung cancer has the only patients who are smoking, obviously, smoking and tobacco are related highly with lung cancer. 

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

But also we have patients that are second-hand smokers or they have other causes of lung cancer, so we need to be aware and we need to try to get attention for that because, in this special population of non-smokers, we know that there is a special characteristic that we can treat them completely different, so it’s very important that we identify those patients as well.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

I really appreciate you sharing that, Dr. Rolfo, because as I’m sure you know, there’s a lot of stigma associated with lung cancer and the assumption that if you have lung cancer, then that automatically means that you are a smoker, and not that we know that people who smoke, those are challenges, but to just acknowledge that not everybody with lung cancer is someone who is a smoker, and also that the approach, the treatment approach may be different, so I really appreciate you pointing that out.

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

And actually Dr. Rochester, you know this stigma was causing several domino effects. We have less funding for research, we have less support from the community sometimes like other tumors have, for example, breast cancer. So if we are looking specifically in lung cancer, the quantity of women that are dying or are going to a diagnosis of lung cancer, it’s very impressive, but actually it’s killing more people sometimes than other tumors. So we need to be very careful with this stigma because we need…and this is a call for action, now we need more funds, we need more support from the community, because this is a very important area that will need research.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Absolutely, so that brings me to the next section of our program, you’ve mentioned a lot of these therapies already, I just want to go a little bit deeper into exploring some of the lung cancer treatment strategies and also talk about clinical trials, so you talked about bio-markers. Can you expand a little bit on that? We know that no two lung cancers are the same. Can you explain to the audience how biomarkers help with lung cancer treatment and they can be so important? 

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

Yeah, we have different…as I say, we are looking at specific characteristics from the tumor when I’m referring to genomic alterations that I’m not referring to something that you can get from your family and bring to your descendants. So I’m talking about mutations that are occurring inside the tumors and only for the tumor, and so affecting only the subject that have this patient that has this alteration. So these biomarkers are an important way to identify populations that we can treat specifically, and I would like to be a little bit more specific on that. We have some of the alterations, for example, one of the mutations that we call EGFR or epidermal growth factor receptor mutation that is supported in different populations in different frequencies. 

For example, if we have patients that are with an Asiatic origin, we have there the possibility to have a…and I’m referring, for example, Chinese, Japanese, this area of the East Asia, we have a hyper-prevalence of these mutations in around 50 percent of the patients with lung cancer, non-squamous we’d say this is another characteristic of the tumor can have this specific alteration. If we are moving, for example, to Latinos, the pains of the areas of Latinos they are coming from, if you have Mexican or for example, Peruvian, they have also due to their ancestry, they are similar to the Asiatic population, 40 percent we’re going to white populations and Anglo-Saxons or Europeans, they have around 7 to 15 percent according to the different regions. 

African-Americans within 15 to 20 percent. So these kinds of alterations are giving us the opportunity to treat and we have nowadays inhibitors and that’s drugs that are from first, second and third generation, so we were evolving in January, this pharmaceutical in January to develop all drugs that are able to penetrate in the brain and acting not only in the tumor, but also in brain metastases. And patients who have this mutation, for example, are treated in first line, in front line, or the first treatment that they receive are pills, no chemotherapy. 

So for this reason, and that is something that is important because when we know that patients, when they start this journey of lung cancer diagnosis before they see an oncologist, they were struggling to get the diagnosis and then we’re passing through several doctors from the general practitioner or to the emergency room, going to CT scan and then a biopsy then a pulmonologist until they get the diagnosis, it’s a big period of time sometimes that we are very nervous because we want to each patient to have a treatment as soon as possible, and sometimes when they arrive to us, we say they need to wait until we have the results of these biomarkers.

So it’s difficult to understand, I put in the place of the patients and the families are really difficult to understand that I was passing a lot, I went here, I came here and I want your treatment right away, but this period that we are asking to wait is really important because we will have information that can change radically the treatment and the history of these patients. So one of the problems that we have in America is the lack of testing, so we have all the tools to test the patients, but if we are looking at some of the statistics, 50 percent of the patients have been tested…39 percent if we are moving to groups, for example, of African-Americans, so we need to be very careful that don’t push to get the treatment very quickly without having all the elements to this thing, which kind of treatment is the most adequate for the patient. 

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

That is such important information, and I really appreciate that, I appreciate it. That you put it in the perspective of the patients and family members. And that grueling, long wait, long time to diagnose this, and finally you’re in front of a specialist and the perception is that, Okay, now I’m going to get this treatment that I need, and then like you said to hear, now you have to wait a little bit longer, but also to understand that that wait is important to make sure that you get the treatment that is meant for your specific type of cancer, I think that is so incredibly important.

Dr. Christian Rolfo:

And believe me, we are trying to push as well from the that there are unfortunately technical times that we cannot overcome that are for testing and for having these results, and we can do that by like I said liquid biopsy, but also tissue biopsy, so we are sending the tissue that the patients gave for a biopsy in a biopsy or in a resection when they have surgery. We take these small biopsies and we send them for analysis and take longer sometimes, so it’s a pity, and we know but it’s the only way to go for the right treatment.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

So with regard to the biomarkers, you mentioned that these are kind of unevenly distributed among different populations depending on your origin, and so how does that play into the progression of the disease, what do we know about why patients with specific biomarkers have a different degree of disease progression?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, so we know more or less that the characteristics, I mean more or less in terms of the evolution of the clinical characteristics of these patients, in terms of organ affection in case of progression, but what is most important of this is that we are able to continue to identify, and I say monitoring these patients with liquid biopsy for example, this is a good tool to understand or to understand it a bit better, which kind of mechanistic involvement. So because we have, for example, patients who were receiving the case that I was discussing before EGFR mutations and they received one graft from the very beginning, a third generation TKI is the one that is approved for the first line, and this patient has a progression.

 The possibility to have a mechanism of resistance is different, so we can have mutations that are coming in the same pathway, so in the same area, same kind of mutation, but different location, just to the people understand is the kind of line and we have the mutation that is here, the one that we are attacking, but we have another mutation that is in this area and it’s not covered by the track that is covering this mutation. 

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

So we have nowadays drugs that are going to, in this area in clinical trials, or we have in other cases other areas of the task of mutations that have nothing to do with the original one. So we are activating another kind of pathway, or we are transforming the tumor from one kind of tumor to another kind of tumor, so for this reason, identify which kind of mechanism of resistance is in place can have an important or have important implications for how we are treating these patients, so we need to look at that to treat the patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Wonderful. And speaking of resistance, we know that there are some patients who end up trying multiple therapies in order to treat their lung cancer, are there alternative treatment strategies for lung cancer patients who have failed all therapies? 

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, absolutely, we have research in lung cancer is never stopping in oncology generally, but in lung cancer it’s really exciting to see how this research is evolving and it’s arriving to the patients the meaning of the research when we are doing access to the patients, to the discovery of the finding that we have, and obviously, we have strategies in the clinical practice, but also we have the clinical trials. So clinical trials, and that is something we need to try to define very well because some patients believe that when we are going to clinical trials there are no more options or we don’t have any other options to do. We are sometimes using clinical trials even in the first line, so even in patients that are for the first time being treated. 

Because we know that some of the cases we are treating patients with from some standard of care and using drugs on top, we want to explore it, we can improve these outcomes that we already know. That could be also a clinical trial, that is also a clinical trial. So don’t take the participation in a clinical trial as the last option that you have, sometimes you will go to your doctor and the first time that you see a doctor for your first diagnosis, they can propose a clinical trial. 

And this is really valuable. What we really appreciate is the collaboration of the patients to be in clinical trials, because we need to remember that the drugs that we are using today were analyzing other patients before, so the treatment that you are receiving in a standard of care today were before a clinical trial, it’s really important how we can interact with the research and the clinical practice very easily, so we have also some options that are…for what we call early drug development, that there are some drugs that are in patients who are receiving the standard of care, and they have the opportunity to be treated in new drugs, and you can discuss…believe me there, and 

I know that there is a lot of questions about clinical trials but the clinical trial setting is really restrictive, it’s very well-coordinated, so you would be part of a very coordinated and structured things that they try to protect the patients in the first instance, and try to understand also how we can help the patients and the future generations. So that is really why we appreciate patients, that the contribution of patients that are giving to this clinical research because it’s helping to advance the knowledge for the new patients as well.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

And I really appreciate how you described clinical trials, and particularly your distinction about it’s not always this last-ditch effort that sometimes you all are using clinical trials as first line therapy. One of the common things is that clinical trials are tomorrow’s medicine today, and helping patients and families to understand that there’s value in being involved in clinical trials and that…and I think with COVID there’s a little more understanding, but certainly, we have a long way to go, and so I appreciate you sharing that. Do you have any specific examples of patients in your practice, and not names of course, but examples of…that have benefited from clinical trials?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Absolutely, we have several of examples and actually FDA was doing a terrific job in the last year to try to get access quickly access to the drugs for patients, and some of this access that was granted was based in clinical trials that we’re starting for a phase one or phase two trials, so we are really doing a very rapid evolution of the drug development, and this is a revolution actually of the drug development because we have access very quickly. I can tell you that it was certainly in my career, several patients in clinical trials that they got benefits. Obviously, clinical trials are answering questions, so that is the way that we can answer questions scientifically and is the only way that we can advance in clinical therapeutics. 

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Wonderful. So I want to move into treatment access, we’ve talked a little bit today about some of the differences that we see in lung cancer with regard to the biomarkers, you and I know, and I’m sure that was in the audience, know that health disparities are widely reported here in the United States with really any all conditions, including lung cancer. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit, Dr. Rolfo about some of the challenges related to appropriate access to lung cancer care as it relates to different socio-demographic populations, and then how can we begin to address those disparities.

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, this is a topic that is really in my heart because I was coming with you before we start the communication, the recording of this. I was working in Europe before coming to the United States. I was shocked by the disparities that we see in some healthcare situations, so in my position before in Europe, we have a healthcare system that discovering for patients and we have, obviously, difficulties, but here I saw in some communities really underserved in terms of access to different service and healthcare is one of them. So we need to be conscious about that when we have patients that are struggling to get transportation, we have patients that are struggling to get approval for some drugs. 

So, there are a lot of areas that need to be addressed, disparity also in terms of language, we have also patients that are not understanding the doctors,  we have patients that are having difficulty when to get to the app information when we are saying, “Oh, you can see your report in your app,” so it’s not easy for some of them, we have generational gaps as well, these are disparities as well. So taking or being conscious of all these factors is making us take action and how we can take actions in our institutions, and in several institutions in the country, we have the support of an experienced team that is addressing that and teams are specific that are working for disparities. Some of them are social workers, some of them are advocate patients, so we have a big team of institutions that are helping to the patients to go for different scenarios, and even we have patients that are homeless, so how we treat patients in these conditions when we know that the patient is in a shelter, so if you have toxicity, what will we be doing. 

So all these things are taken into consideration, believe me, because it is like New York, you have a big disparity of or a big diversity, and we say of populations in one consultation morning, you can see all of them in your waiting room, so we need to try to address all this, and there are politics that are coming from us as a healthcare system, but there are also politics that they need to come from governmental politics, so try to use these…all the tools that we have at our disposal are important, and also we have a very good support of advocacy groups. 

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

And this is something that I want to really profit their patient to say thanks because we have several, several advocacy groups that are doing a terrific job from testing to helping patients to go through this journey. So it’s really an important job, and obviously families, families are helping to these disparities and patients, so patients themself. So what I say always to the patient, raise your voice, empower yourself.

 Try to ask for your rights if you don’t understand your doctor… Ask again, if you want to have a second opinion, talk to your doctor, that is the most important thing. We are very open to help the patients, and that is our mission. So if I say to my patients, If you want to have a second opinion, please let me know, and I try to direct you to somebody who is an expert in the field and can help us to learn better your disease or your treatment, but I think it’s a situation that everyone is winning, especially the patient, but also ask for future patients understanding better every case.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Well, as an independent patient advocate, myself, Dr. Rolfo, I always get super excited when physicians like yourself are talking about and emphasizing the importance of patients and families advocating for themselves, so I just want to reiterate a couple of things that you said just to make sure that our audience heard it very clearly and asking questions is one of the things that you said that is, I believe one of the most important ways that we can advocate for ourselves and for our family members in healthcare settings, and I really appreciate that you offer advice around second opinions.

A lot of people feel that they are sending their doctor if they ask for a second opinion, but a confident doctor like yourself and a good doctor is going to encourage that, particularly if the patient or family just needs that extra reassurance, so I just really appreciate that you brought that up. Before we wrap up, there are a few questions from our audience that I would love to present to you, and so one of them comes from MacKenzie and MacKenzie asked, can you speak about MRD testing and what that means for lung cancer?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, and that we were discussing briefly. So minimal residual disease is the… As I say, when we have an operation, we can have the opportunity to have completely resected a tumor, but we don’t know more than with the CT scan when the patient will recover. So we are without an answer believing every follow-up visit what has happened, seeing if it has gone). So we are trying to reduce this…reduce the anxiety first of all, to try to get the tools that are able to identify patients that they can recurrence, have a recurrence so liquid biopsies, one of them, and we have now the several methods that are trials and several data coming that there are some companies that actually they are a market for some of the options, we are still having validations,  required validations, but we will certainly be there very shortly in time to identify these patients and to treat them in the proper time.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Wonderful, and I think you just addressed a question that came in from Herald, which was is liquid biopsy playing a role in monitoring disease recurrence in lung cancer?

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Sure, we are actually tailoring treatments and checking the patients, and I have several, several experiences in patients that they’re monitoring over the time, and we have actually some of the vendors that are proposing this approach monitoring, liquid biopsy is a great tool because it’s minimally invasive, it’s just a blood draw and we can continue. Not all the patients have the possibility in terms of they are not all cheaters, that is something we need to know DNA, so it’s the majority of them, we can do it in some minimal proportion, we cannot do it when there are also possibilities to follow them.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Excellent, and our last question from the audience comes from Laura, and she wants to know, “Are immunotherapy combinations in the metastatic setting, expanding to treat earlier stage lung cancer?”

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

Yeah, absolutely, we have actually an FDA approval for us, one of the immunotherapeutic drugs in patients after the resection of the disease with some characteristics, but we are there and actually we are having more and more clinical trials using in earlier stages so we will say in the other stage from the earlier stage from that is the neoadjuvant and we call that when we are doing a treatment to reduce two months to be operated later on, so we have also some trials that are going there, but we have an approval already for the adjuvant setting that is after the surgery in some patients.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

That’s wonderful. You’ve given us a lot of good news. A lot of hopeful news, Dr. Rolfo, it is time for us to wrap up. I want to thank you again for being here for sharing your expertise. In closing, is there any takeaway that you want to leave with our audience today regarding lung cancer and advocating for themselves.

 Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

I will say that, first of all, thanks for the opportunity and it was a pleasure to discuss with you and I’d write to the population and say, Try to ask for your rights as a patient, so ask for your rights, be proactive in terms of your disease, you are the main actor here,  we are tools of trying to help you to arrive to the destination, but the good important thing is to create a good relation with your doctor, and to create a good relation with your doctor is part of the trust from both sides, so having an open communication… Open communication with the family as well. Sometimes we are smuggling or hiding things as a patient for our families to don’t help them, and vice versa that is not helping in this process, absolutely. And if you want, if you have that asking if you’re never deserving, so this is what we are here and all the team is here to help you.

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Wonderful. Well, I just want to echo what Dr. Rolfo said about asking questions about being an active member of your medical team, the doctors are there to assist you, but you are ultimately the expert for your disease for your body, so I just wanna thank you again deferral for being here for sharing such important information thank you all again for tuning into this patient empowerment network program. If you’d like to watch this webinar again, there will be a replay and you will receive an email when that recording is available, and remember, following this program, you will receive a link to a survey, please fill out that survey. Let us know what was helpful so that we can serve you better in the future to learn more about lung cancer and to access tools to help you get the best care no matter where you live. Visit powerfulpatients.org/lung cancer. I’m Nicole Rochester, thank you so much for joining us. 

When to Consider a Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer Treatment

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When to Consider a Clinical Trial for Lung Cancer Treatment from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

When it comes to non-small cell lung cancer treatment options, where do clinical trials fit in? Dr. Tejas Patil of the University of Colorado Cancer Center explains how he discusses clinical trial participation with patients.

Dr. Tejas Patil is an academic thoracic oncologist at the University of Colorado Cancer Center focused on targeted therapies and novel biomarkers in lung cancer. Learn more about Dr. Patil, here.

See More From Lung Cancer Clinical Trials 201

Related Resources:

Where Do Clinical Trials Fit Into a Lung Cancer Treatment Plan?

Lung Cancer Targeted Therapy: What Is It and Who Is It Right For?

Questions to Ask Before Participating in a Lung Cancer Clinical Trial


Transcript:

Katherine:

When it comes to non-small cell lung cancer treatment options, where do clinical trials fit in? 

Dr. Patil:

So, clinical trials are very important to advancing our knowledge and advancing our ability to care for patients in the best way possible. What I frequently get asked from patients is am I going to be a guinea pig for a clinical trial? And I think it’s really important to emphasize that clinical trials are comparing the best-known standard of care to something new.  

So, in effect you would never be a guinea pig. You would really just be receiving what is the best-known standard of care. And that would be compared to some novel approach to treating cancer. In general, I’m very encouraging of patients to enroll in clinical trials.  

I discuss the pros and cons of this because there are logistical concerns to keep in mind when patients are thinking about enrolling in clinical trials. If a patient enjoys traveling, and enjoys wanting to spend time with their family, that has to be balanced against the regimented schedule that some clinical trials may have.  

If they live in a rural part of the state and they have to travel three to four hours weekly, that’s a decision that has to be had and be made. But in general, if a patient is eligible and willing, I’m strongly encouraging that patients enroll in clinical trials to help further the knowledge of the field. 

Katherine:

Yeah. Are there clinical trial options available for patients who have already been treated with another therapy? 

Dr. Patil:

Yes. So, the clinical trials come in variety of forms and patients are eligible at various stages.  

So, there are some clinical trials that require patients to be newly diagnosed. And so, the trial would be the “first therapy” that they receive. But many trials actually I would say the majority of clinical trials in lung cancer are looking at patients who’ve progressed on the first line of treatment and are now facing the possibility of receiving second line treatments or further. So, that’s a common place for patients to enroll in clinical trials. 

Where Do Clinical Trials Fit Into a Lung Cancer Treatment Plan?

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Where Do Clinical Trials Fit Into a Lung Cancer Treatment Plan? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Clinical trial participation is essential to advancing cancer care options. Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez shares how clinical trials are providing lung cancer patients with more treatment approaches and discusses the safety protocols in place to protect patients.

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez is Associate Director of Community Outreach – Thoracic Oncology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Health System. Learn more about Dr. Rodriguez, here.

See More From Lung Cancer Clinical Trials 201

Related Resources:

Lung Cancer Research Highlights From ASCO 2022

Lung Cancer Targeted Therapy: What Is It and Who Is It Right For?

Expert Advice for Recently Diagnosed Lung Cancer Patients


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Rodriguez, research advances aren’t possible without patients participating in clinical trials. 

So, where do clinical trials actually fit into a lung cancer treatment plan? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, clinical trials are really what move the science of all these developments that we saw at the oncology conference, the ASCO conference.  

So, it’s not until patients join trials that we can approve drugs. So, I think clinical trials are very important, so we move the science. But then, for specific patients in lung cancer, now that we’re moving all of our best therapies upfront, we run out of options faster than we did for some patients. So, it is important that A) that we have access to clinical trials, which if we look across the country many of our cancer patients don’t have either Phase I programs near them, they’re very difficult to get to, or very expensive to get to. 

So, we have to do a lot in terms of increasing access to clinical trials. 

But I think your specific question has to do where it comes in. I think if you have advanced lung cancer, where most patients today will not have a cure, clinical trials is at the center of things that should be considered from the get-go. Sometimes some of the drugs are what is called Phase I, that these are new drugs that we’re trying to find a dose, we don’t really understand the efficacy of the drugs. So, those trials are reserved for patients that have failed standard treatment. 

But then we have patients with very difficult situations that are progressing really fast that should join clinical trials. And I think that as we do more biomarker testing, we are learning a lot about the individual patient tumor.  

So, the promise of precision medicine is that you can actually find drugs for specific patients, and that’s what clinical trials that are called basket trials, where if you have a mutation regardless of your tissue of origin. So, for example, we have two large basket trials that we are enrolling patients, one called the TAPUR trial and the other one called MATCH.  

And MATCH is organized by the NCI and TAPUR by ASCO, and these trials if you find you have a biomarker analysis of next generation sequence, you find a specific mutation, you can actually see there’s a trial for this specific patient. So, the trials come in, I think they’re very critical to move the science, they’re very important for individual patients with rare mutations, but I think it’s upon us to make sure that these trials are available.   

Katherine Banwell:

What advice do you have for patients who may be hesitant to participate in a clinical trial? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, I think you have to ask questions, I think that there’s a lot of misconceptions in different communities. So, we take care of a lot of Hispanic patients, and we have kind of really have to do a lot of education about what patients and patients family’s think about. Because sometimes I feel I have to convince the family members before I can get to really talk to the patient about the trials. 

But I think in the past, trials have been considered only experimental, and patients are used for science but not really getting a benefit. So, I think that’s the first misconception. When we open a trial at our cancer center, and I’m part of the experimental therapeutics’ unit, we are opening trials that we believe that that science will move and offer something in addition. So, I think, that is not because we want to do an experiment, it’s because we really want to offer this patient the latest, or something new, that could potentially offer them a better response than what we are achieving with our standard treatments. 

So, I think that’s the first misconception, that these are experiments on patients and patients don’t benefit. The whole point of the trial is to find better drugs and benefit.  

So, it’s been shown in multiple parts of the country and big cancer centers that patients that join clinical trials do better at the stage of their disease. And part of the reason that they do better is that instead of having one doctor that is making decisions, and they’re running out of options, and kind of coming up with ideas out of nowhere, when you join a Phase I clinical trial or an organized trial, you have at least 10 to 20 doctors that are looking at your case or reviewing your images. There’s a lot of check to make sure that you’re not getting unwanted toxicity and that the trial is stopped if you’re not getting a benefit. 

And this is important so that we don’t expose more patients to toxicity, but that’s another misconception that it’s not safe. And we’ll do our best to make sure that it’s safe.