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Expert Perspective on Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment What Small Cell Lung Cancer Strategies and Innovations Can Improve Survival Outcomes?

Small cell lung cancer survival outcomes can be improved with some strategies and innovations. Experts Dr. Nagashree Seetharamu from Northwell Health and thoracic oncology nurse practitioner Beth Sandy from Abraham Cancer Center discuss some of the approaches that are showing promise for SCLC treatment and other potential ways to improve patient outcomes. 

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Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

We know that survival outcomes in small cell lung cancer remain challenging as both of you have pointed out, particularly for those with extensive stage small cell lung cancer despite incremental improvements in treatment strategies. For your colleagues that are watching this program, what are some strategies and innovations that may offer improved survival outcomes? Now I’ll start with you, Dr. Seetharamu.

Dr. Nagashree Seetharamu:

Having your group in place, identifying the providers that are dedicated to this disease. Making sure there are processes in place from early diagnosis through the treatments and seeing multiple providers is in place. Making sure that every treatment, there’s a pathway attached to it, there’s a protocol attached to it so that we are not scrambling last minute. Like Ms. Sandy said, it’s the same issue. It’s a three-day regimen. The first line, we want to make sure that, you know, the treatment starts. We are open on Saturdays too. So, you know, it has to be Monday through Thursdays. You know, simple things as that may become very challenging.

In patients with the brain metastases, making sure that they see the providers also in a very timely fashion. Sometimes the urgency may not be realized by other providers, because they’re not used to just seeing small cell lung cancer patients. Just making sure that that is communicated with teams. Yeah. I mean, just streamlining the processes as much as possible. Empowering the patients to understand their disease and making sure that they ask the right questions and be, you know, willful, you know, like complete participants, partners in the care, are some of the strategies that I can think of.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thank you, Dr. Seetharamu. Do you have anything you’d like to add, Ms. Sandy?

Beth Sandy:

You know, I think looking ahead for clinical trials, new drugs, it’s been really hard in small cell. We don’t have nearly the advances that we’ve seen in non-small cell lung cancer as far as any targeted therapies. Dr. Seetharamu talked about this earlier…is that maybe we could figure out some of these different subgroups by looking at their pathology and seeing if some of them may respond differently to certain agents.  I’m hopeful about some new drugs that are coming down in the pipeline.

There is an anti-TIGIT agent combined with immunotherapy that looks hopeful, that could produce some good outcomes. Combining immunotherapy drugs, combining them with chemotherapy, you know, potentially down the line we’ll see some of these drugs that will get approvals in small cell lung cancer and improve some of our progression-free survivals and hopefully overall survivals. So just continuing to enroll patients on studies. Have studies designed to fit this patient population, which we’ve significantly lacked in the past 30 years in small cell lung cancer.

Dr. Nicole Rochester:

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Sandy. And you brought up the clinical trials, and so on that same topic, Dr. Seetharamu, do you have anything to add with regard to really improving access to clinical trials for patients with small cell lung cancer?

Dr. Nagashree Seetharamu:

I think bringing clinical trials to the communities is perhaps the biggest way to do it. You know, patients with small cell, many can travel, but there are many that cannot. So it’s important to understand that making it easier for patients to know what trials are available. Right now the options that we have, the websites that we have, it’s hard even for a provider to kind of navigate through it. Making it easier. Advocacy groups, you know, ensuring that patients are tied to advocacy groups, because they get a lot of information from these groups. It’s important.

And I encourage patients to join these groups, because it empowers them and kind of unifies their voice. There are clinical trials that are looking at doing labs at home or in their local centers, so they don’t have to travel all the way to the main center to get the labs done. That can be a huge help for patients. And again, making sure that clinical trials, when they’re designed, they are adaptable to real world, you know. And Ms. Sandy brought this up before, we don’t want trials that only address the cream of the…you know, like just a small proportion of patients. It should be really viable for the larger community. Yeah. I mean, these are some…I am sure there are many other things that can be done, but I think this would be a good start.


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