Tag Archive for: Thoracic Oncology

Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing

Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer expert Dr. Grace Dy discusses the latest research in lung cancer testing, including liquid biopsies and minimal residual disease (MRD).

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

See More From INSIST! Lung Cancer

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An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer

An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer

The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment?


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

As we know, researchers are still discovering new markers. Could you tell us about the latest news and research in biomarker testing for non-small cell lung cancer? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

Oh, there is a lot going on. You know, sky’s the limit. But just an example: we have liquid biopsies that are in clinical use right now, typically in the stage IV setting.  

But beyond that, we’re also having what we call minimal residual disease testing in what we call adjuvant situations. For example, patients who had surgery, there’s a big proportion of patients who still relapse.  

So, finding out – and our scans are imperfect. They will not be able to detect micro metastatic clones or even a small cluster.  

If you have a million cancer cells clustered somewhere, it will not show on the scan. 

Katherine Banwell:

Each and every one of them. 

Dr. Grace Dy:

Right. So, is there a better way? And so, that’s the question: can we detect it in the blood? So, these are assays that are being developed. Looking at different angles, not necessarily mutations, but maybe what we call epigenetic, meaning changes on top of the DNA that makes the DNA molecule be different in terms of whether some areas of the gene will be expressed or not. 

And so, looking at these patterns because they’re different in cancers versus non-cancers. So, whether you can see it in the blood. So, it’s a ripe area.  

There’s a lot of – so, there’s some overlap with early cancer detection and MRD, or minimal residual disease testing. 

So, I think there’s an intense interest in developing these. But none are fully validated yet. There are trials that are going on, the studies that are ongoing to prove the utility and validity of these tests. So, we’re very excited. And obviously, AI everywhere. You have ChatGPT, right? So, you have AI being incorporated in diagnostics as well, in radiology, in pathology, to see: hey, maybe can we use AI technology to even maybe one day give us a mutation profile, right?   

Katherine Banwell:

Yeah. 

Dr. Grace Dy:

And that would be huge, right? But we’re not there yet. 

The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

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

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

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

See More From INSIST! Lung Cancer

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Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing

Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing

Which Tests Do You Need Before Choosing a Lung Cancer Treatment?

How Can You Access Personalized Medicine for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

How Can You Access Personalized Medicine for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer? 


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

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

Dr. Grace Dy:

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

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

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

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment?

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer driver mutations can have an impact on therapy choices for patients. Dr. Grace Dy discusses the various lung cancer driver mutations and how treatment options may target specific markers.

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

See More From INSIST! Lung Cancer

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An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer

An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer

How Does Biomarker Testing Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Care?

How Does Biomarker Testing Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Care?

Why Do Lung Cancer Patients Need Molecular Testing Before Choosing Treatment?

Why Do Lung Cancer Patients Need Molecular Testing Before Choosing Treatment?


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

How does testing impact treatment and care? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

So, back in like maybe more than two decades ago, I was still in school. The treatment paradigm is sort of like a one size fits all. You come in with a lung cancer diagnosis. Everybody gets treated the same.  

But with advancements in technology and understanding of actually what we call lung cancer is really genetically very different from one patient to another. We are actually not even still able to tease out all the particular details, but there are some improvements that have been made along the way. And so, defining, for example, mutations in cancers, there are what we call driver mutations that have a matched targeted therapy.  

In certain patients, actually the target therapy works so much better than chemotherapy, for example. And that’s why we have it in guidelines based on the results of clinical trials showing that in the appropriate setting, if you have a mutation that we discovered through molecular testing, and then you use the matched target therapy, survival is so much better compared to, for example, chemotherapy.  

Same with immunotherapy. If we use a biomarker to test out which patients may actually respond well to immunotherapy alone – so, that’s a major treatment paradigm change within the less than 10 years wherein we define there’s a group of patients where that’s all they need. Non-chemo, just immunotherapy, and they will do well. 

Katherine Banwell:

What are some of the mutations that are being targeted? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

Right. So, it seems like every year, it’s growing. So, it started off with the poster child in lung cancer story of EGFR. So, we have EGFR mutations. Even EGFR mutations, they’re a subtype of mutations for – there are certain drugs that work better for certain mutations.  

So, we have the classical EGFR mutations, the atypical EGFR mutations. But EGFR mutations as a group are probably the most characterized given the longevity of the research that has been done. But there’s a lot more. 

So, for example, ALK, KRAS, BRAF, HER2, NTFK, NRG, RET, MET. Even those mutations, they’re all these new ones. It’s between the subtype of mutations. For example, we talked about EGFR. Same thing with MET. You have MET exon 14 skip mutations. But in the absence of MET skip mutations, there are also what we call MET gene amplification, MET protein over-expression that have matching therapies that may actually work better. 

But we’re still kind of scratching the surface. There’s a whole lot more being characterized and developed. Case in point, just a little over a year ago, there’s an LTK Fusion that was described. Very rare. But there’s a target therapy for it. So, unless you test it, you won’t find a matching targeted therapy. 

An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer

An Expert Explains Predictive Biomarker Testing for Lung Cancer from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What is lung cancer biomarker testing? Dr. Grace Dy defines both biomarker and molecular testing and explains how these test results are used in lung cancer patient care.

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

See More From INSIST! Lung Cancer

Related Resources:

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment

What Biomarkers Affect Lung Cancer Care and Treatment?

The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

The Role of Antibody Drug Conjugates in Lung Cancer Care

Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing

Advances in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Testing


Transcript:

Dr. Grace Dy:

My name is Grace Dy. I’m a thoracic medical oncologist at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center here in Buffalo, New York. 

Katherine Banwell:

Thank you for being with us today.  

Dr. Grace Dy:

Thank you for having me. 

Katherine Banwell:

What is biomarker testing, and is this the same as molecular testing for non-small cell lung cancer? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

That’s a very good question. So, let’s first maybe define what biomarker means. So, biomarker is an all-encompassing term relating to a measurement of a biological parameter. That’s what it means.  

So, you can actually have biomarker related to imaging. So, it’s not specific to a particular test. But what it’s trying to do is to guide doctors in making decisions. So, you can have, for example, a PET scan as a biomarker to indicate the effectiveness of therapy. 

So, it’s not specific to a test. So, it’s a broader scope. But in cancer, generally, it’s used interchangeably with molecular testing. And molecular testing is a more focused test on the genetics of the cancer.  

In some aspects, sometimes it also refers to testing for proteins, characteristics of different proteins in the cancer. Again, to help doctors generally define what might be a better treatment option that is personalized to the patient’s cancer. 

In some instances, the biomarker can also be what we call prognostic, meaning independent of what we do with the treatment, it may define to us how well a patient will survive or have their outcomes, whether they have treatment or not. 

So, those are maybe the nuances between a predictive versus a prognostic biomarker. But for all intents and purposes, the most common test that we use for lung cancer patients are what we call predictive biomarker testing. Molecular testing is one of the ones that we often commonly request to help us define treatment modalities, especially in non-small cell lung cancer. 

What Procedures Are in Place to Protect Lung Cancer Clinical Trial Participants?

What Procedures Are in Place to Protect Lung Cancer Clinical Trial Participants? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What safety measures are in place to protect people in lung cancer clinical trials? Dr. Grace Dy reviews protocols to help maintain clinical trial safety.

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

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What safety measures are in place to safeguard patients?  

Dr. Grace Dy:

So, there’s a lot of safety measures involved. Not just within the protocol but there are also governing committees. IRB, Scientific Review committees, that look over – and these committees typically also, actually, involve some patient advocates that will be reviewing the protocols to make sure it’s not just a scientific aspect that is looked into but also patient perspectives that are looked into when we review these protocols.  

So, from the medical perspective, protocols are generally written with guidelines to help treating doctors how to manage side effects. For example, because of the intense preparation – what we call pre-clinical, meaning the preparation done in animal models, in learning from other settings, for example; from other drugs, for example. If it’s not the first in class, you have a sense of what potential side-effects might be expected and so you prepare accordingly. 

Lung Cancer Clinical Trials | Addressing Common Patient Concerns

Lung Cancer Clinical Trials | Addressing Common Patient Concerns from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Considering a lung cancer clinical trial can feel overwhelming and brings up a number of questions. Dr. Grace Dy reviews common concerns from patients, and explains how and when placebo may be used in trials.

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

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What are some common concerns you hear from patients when discussing lung cancer clinical trial options?  

Dr. Grace Dy:

When I discuss clinical trials, the first question generally patients ask is: well, how effective is the drug, right? And the second question will be: well, what are the side effects? And those are very valid questions, but we may not always have an answer to it, especially if they’re in early phase. I do a lot of early phase clinical trials, meaning sometimes we don’t even know the proper dose of the drug to use, for example.  

And the intent of the trial, for example, in Phase I, generally, is to find out what is a proper dose to use that is safe and effective before we can do a test in Phase II setting using the recommended dose to test it out more rigorously how well it works. And if it passes Phase II, then we go to Phase III, which then generally is comparing it with the standard to see whether it will be better or at least equivalent or non-inferior. 

And you may ask, “Well, why even do a non-inferior?” Because, well, some drugs, it may not prolong your life more than current therapies, but if it has better side effect profile, right? So, there are actually drugs that are approved through non-inferiority trials. But those are the common concerns, and I think another common concern that I hear when I talk about trials, patients are concerned about receiving placebo. 

Katherine Banwell:

And what do you tell patients? 

Dr. Grace Dy:

Well, it depends on the design of the trial and the question that is being answered. So, in fact, for example, some situations in the standard of care is not to do anything. The best way to remove bias is to administer a placebo because the standard care would be not to do anything. And those, generally, are Phase III, you know. An early phase, Phase I, Phase II generally there are no placebo involved. I mean, there are some randomized Phase II trials that there are placebo involved and I explain to the patient why placebo may be involved and it’s usually on top of a standard of care. So, there could be a standard of care therapy but you add something else. So, you want to compare it with a new drug plus the standard of care. So, you might add placebo so that the doctors will not be bias when they measured their scans, for example. They say oh, this patient is getting this experimental drug. So, they’re excited. They might oh, you know, make it look better than what it actually is.  

Katherine Banwell:

Now, as a researcher yourself, do you always know that a placebo is part of the clinical trial testing?  

Dr. Grace Dy:

Yes, it will be in the design. So, it will say there is a placebo control. So, the title, or the design, generally will tell you this is a randomized, double-blind placebo control. Usually if there is a blinded there might be some placebo involved because then you don’t know what people are getting.

Why Lung Cancer Patient Advocacy Is Essential

Why Lung Cancer Patient Advocacy Is Essential from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez, a lung cancer specialist, discusses the importance of patient advocacy in lung cancer care. Dr. Rodriguez shares how self-advocacy can impact cancer care and how being vocal as a patient advocate can help others in the lung cancer community.

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.

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

Why is it so important for patients to share their symptoms and side effects that they’re having with their healthcare team? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, there are two types of advocacy. There’s the advocacy that you do at your personal level, so if the patient is not telling us that they’re having side effects, weeks can go by and these things don’t get addressed. So, you have to be your own advocate, your family can be a great advocate. It doesn’t matter who you are, if we don’t know your side effects, and you’re not communicating that, we’re not able to impact, and intervene early. But there’s a bigger message of advocacy that is extremely important, specifically in lung cancer for decades. 

I mean, I think for a long time we didn’t have a lot of lung cancer advocates because people were not surviving lung cancer. And now, that we have people live years with lung cancer, metastatic cancer, and really are coming off treatment, now we have patients that can be the guiding light. 

They can tell other patients about how they did, their side effects, can tell their story about how targeted treatment impacted their prognosis. So, advocacy is critical, we don’t have a lot of advocacy in lung cancer. We need advocates in every community, rural communities, urban communities, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans. In every community there is someone who’s impacted by lung cancer.   

I think that you get something out of it, you feel like you’re helping other people, you’re definitely making people aware. And hopefully, if a legislator hears your story, because last night I was at an advocacy summit, and we had a legislator, and we were asking what really moves legislators to invest in research. And he’s like, “It’s not letter, it’s not emails, it’s these personal stories from patients, and patient advocates.” And we don’t have those stories unless people come out and say and tell them. But they really make people invest, and they really prioritize the importance of research. And that would help you also because if there’s more research, then your next treatment will be funded faster. 

Expert Advice for Recently Diagnosed Lung Cancer Patients

Expert Advice for Recently Diagnosed Lung Cancer Patients from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

A lung cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming. Lung cancer specialist Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez shares key advice for recently diagnosed patients, including tips related to essential testing and preparing for appointments.

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.

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What key advice do you have for recently diagnosed lung cancer patients? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

I think that a couple of things. When it’s a diagnosis of lung cancer, it’s very overwhelming, and fortunately now there’s a lot of resources online, but at the beginning there’s a lot of information that you don’t know. So, sometimes if you go online all you do is get scared. I think that you need to answer some very specific questions from your doctor. What is your stage? And then, after your stage, my next question is; what is a molecular driver of my tumor, the sequencing of my tumor?  

In the past, we thought all the lung cancers were the same, but now we know they’re many, many different types of lung cancer. And they’re the EGFR-driven cancers, the ALK, the ROS, they’re all different, they all have different treatment options. And when you go and look online, there’s organized advocacy groups around each of these mutations, and then you can get better information, and valuable kind of insight from the information that is out there. So, I think the first thing is to before you go in the internet, talk to your doctor about your stage and require, not ask lightly.  

Require that your genetic mutation, your sequencing is done at the time of diagnosis of advanced lung cancer. Because that would really determine your treatment.  

So, I think that is very important for patients that get diagnosed. And then also, understand that there are a lot of resources out there, so that you need to ask for questions, bring someone with you. During COVID a lot of the clinics were closed, but we were able to have family members join virtually the visits, and now patients can come in with their family members. 

I find that having someone else in the room who wrote answers and wrote notes, will really help you kind of get the most out of your consultation. And also ask questions for the next time you come, or we have a portal where patients ask questions online. So, the first visit where you get the most questions answered, and sometimes it’s part B and part C. So, you have to keep until you feel satisfied that you understand the plan. We also tell patients that doctors don’t know everything, sometimes the doctor that you have is not the one that you feel you have a connection with. So, know that you have rights, and there are other doctors out there, and you can get second opinions. 

So, you are the best advocate, it’s your life, and you can rely on your doctor, and their physician extenders, physician assistants, nurses, to get as much as you can from that. But also, look outside of your institution, maybe there’s a better option for you. 

How Does Immunotherapy Treat Lung Cancer?

How Does Immunotherapy Treat Lung Cancer? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How does immunotherapy work? Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez, a lung cancer specialist, explains how immunotherapy harnesses the immune system to kill cancer cells and how this treatment approach is transforming lung cancer care.

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 INSIST! Lung Cancer

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

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Understanding Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What is immunotherapy, and how does it work to treat lung cancer?  

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, immunotherapy technically can be used to treat almost every cancer. So, it’s this concept that over time the cancer cells learn to bypass the immune surveillance, which is the way that your body identifies cells that are abnormal and gets rid of them.  

Your immune system can do that. And over time cancer grows and grows faster because your immune cells don’t even recognize that the cancer cells are there. So, immune therapy, specifically the checkpoint inhibitors, they target a receptor that is overexpressed in cancer cells, that make cancer cells invisible to the immune system. So, when you use, for example, some of these antibodies that bind the PD-L1, the programmed death ligand-1 receptor, that in itself gets rid of that veil that is covering the tumor cells. And now, your immune system can recognize the cancer. 

And that is one way of activating the immune system against the cancer, checkpoint inhibitors. There are newer drugs that are coming in the market, newer kind of engineered immune cells that will, in the future, be able to be developed for that specific cell. And in a way, immune therapy is more natural because you’re not getting a chemotherapy is that causes nausea or hair loss.  

You’re getting your immune system kind of ramped up, activated, against your cancer cells. It can have side effects of when you activate all these immune cells, you can cause inflammation in the body that has to be monitored, and some patients can be serious. And also, people have developed autoimmune kind of antibody reactions. So, there is a lot of monitoring that needs to be done. It’s given intravenously. We have doses now that last up to six weeks in some of the major immunotherapies that we use, like pembrolizumab, so you don’t have to come all the time. 

And I think the one thing that I’ve seen that is very promising about immunotherapy is that if you activate your immune system, almost like when you were young you got a vaccine, and you don’t have to get it every year, you have a memory response against that virus. Immunotherapy can achieve that for about 20 to 30 percent of patients today, where they get this memory against the cancer cells, and they could potentially come off treatment. 

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

Lung Cancer Targeted Therapy: What Is It and Who Is It Right For? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How does targeted therapy work? Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez defines targeted therapy and shares how this personalized treatment approach attacks lung cancer cells.

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.

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How Does Immunotherapy Treat Lung Cancer?

Understanding Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment

Understanding Biomarker Testing for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What is targeted therapy and who might it be right for? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, targeted therapy kind of falls under the umbrella of precision medicine, where if you find a genetic driver, a mutation that is making that cancer grow. And out there we have drugs, we already have nine that are targeting specific genetic changes.  

The targeted therapy is really that treatment, either a pill, or an injection that goes after the genetic driver. And that, in a way, I describe to patients like you have a switch that went on and caused the cancer growth, and now with the targeted therapy we can put that switch off. And those treatments are very important because as they have evolved, they have kind of fill the gaps that chemotherapy had for patients. So, the one thing about targeted therapy is that because you’re going after one specific change, many times they’re less toxic. 

So, cytotoxic chemotherapy to kill lung cancer cells has to unfortunately kill a lot of good cancer cells in your body, specifically red cells, white cells, and platelets. So, that your body has to recover from all this normal tissue that dies, the normal cells that get impacted by the cytotoxic chemotherapy. In targeted therapy there is side effects, but a lot of them are decreased compared to chemo. 

And they’re really going after cells that have this mutation. So, preferentially you’re attacking the cancer and not the whole body. So, that’s an extra advantage for patients. And as we have patients live longer on these treatments, toxicity, and cause, all these things are really critical so that we develop better drugs that are even more specific targeting only what needs to be targeted and cause less side effects. 

Why Do Lung Cancer Patients Need Molecular Testing Before Choosing Treatment?

Why Do Lung Cancer Patients Need Molecular Testing Before Choosing Treatment? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How do a patient’s genetic mutations impact lung cancer treatment? Lung cancer specialist Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez emphasizes the importance of undergoing biomarker testing, also referred to as molecular testing, to identify genetic mutations, which may lead to a more personalized lung cancer therapy.

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.

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What is molecular testing? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, that is very critical for lung cancer patients today. So, molecular testing is when we get tumor cells, and we analyze the genetic changes that lead to that tumor growth. And that can be done today in different ways. The usual goal standard have been to do a biopsy of the tumor, and then do next generation sequencing when we analyze many, many genes that can impact cancer growth, and then we get a signature what drives that cancer. And in doing that, we discovered that some patients, for example, regardless of who they are, women or men, smokes or non-smokers, they may have a genetic driver that we have a treatment for, that does better than chemotherapy. 

So, that is important that you identify that as early as possible.  

Katherine Banwell:

Why is it necessary for patients to undergo molecular testing prior to a lung cancer treatment plan? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, it is extremely critical because we have data today that several of these targeted treatments, the improvement of survival is not in the span of months, it’s in the span of years. 

People will do years better if they started with the treatment for their specific cancer driver mutation than if they received chemotherapy.  

We also saw that when immunotherapy came in the market a lot of patients, rightly so, doctors thought, “This is the best new thing, let’s put this patient on immunotherapy” and they were not testing patients for mutations before they started. And we found out two things, one is that there is toxicity if you give immunotherapy followed by some of the targeted therapies, specifically one called osimertinib (Tagrisso), so that you could cause harm.  

And then, number two, that immunotherapy doesn’t work in every case. A lot of patients with targeted driver mutations, they do better with a targeted treatment than they will do with chemotherapy and immunotherapy. So, I think it is important to define that early. We also now have approval for at least one targeted therapy after surgery. 

So, even patients that are early stage, which is not the majority of patients, but those patients also will get an improvement if they have an EGFR mutation specifically if they receive that targeted pill treatment after surgery. So, understanding the tumor is important so you can select the right treatment for the patient.  

Now, this is a dynamic thing, so tumors can evolve over time. So, there are many times that patients come to us for second opinions, and we actually recommend a repeat biopsy to understand the new genetic signature of that tumor because we may find a new option that was not there at the beginning. 

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

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.

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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. 

Lung Cancer Research Highlights From ASCO 2022

Lung Cancer Research Highlights From ASCO 2022 from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer specialist Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez shares research updates from the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, including the latest advances in immunotherapy and inhibitor therapy.

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:

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

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

Expert Advice for Navigating Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Care and Treatment


Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

Cancer researchers recently came together at the annual ASCO meeting. Were there any highlights at the meeting that you think lung cancer patients should know about? 

Dr. Estelamari Rodriguez:

So, sometimes we look at the conference, and we look at the plenary sessions. And if we don’t see a lung cancer abstract centered at the big plenary session, we feel that nothing happened, but a lot happened. We are learning that all the advances in terms of immunotherapy and targeted therapies can be used earlier and earlier for patients. So, we had data on the NADIM trial, which is a trial out of Spain where they use neoadjuvant, chemo immunotherapy. 

We already have that approved in the United States with nivolumab (Opdivo), and they use also nivolumab with a different combination chemotherapy. What was really amazing is that you can replicate this data that is used in immunotherapy before surgery, patients can have very dramatic pathologic complete responses. Which means that at the time of surgery, we don’t find cancer, and that portends a better prognosis. And obviously, we’re trying to do our best for patients. So, that was really, I think, confirms the data that we have seen that immunotherapy can be used earlier.  

We also saw updates of trials that had been ongoing looking at the use of immunotherapy in difficult settings. So, there was a trial also out of Spain called the ATEZO-BRAIN trial where they look at the use of immunotherapy Atezolizumab for patients that have brain disease and diagnosis of metastatic disease.  

And for a long time, we thought that immunotherapy responses really wouldn’t work in the brain, and we saw that in this trial they were able to control disease in the brain, delay the use of radiation for these patients, and improve their quality of life. So, I think that was, again, a strong message that immunotherapy is here to stay, we can use it in your patients. Then, the third section of trials that were very telling were updates of new drugs for targeted therapy. So, we know today that we have about nine actionable mutations in lung cancer.  

So, that is very important that we understand that when a patient gets diagnosed, do they have an actionable mutation, a genetic change that we can target? And that is really the promise of precision medicine, so they present the data for a new drug for KRAS G12C mutation, positive patients call it aggressive. And we already have a drug that was approved about a year ago called sotorasib. 

And these drugs are used on patients that previously we knew will do very poorly with chemotherapy and immunotherapy because this KRAS G12C mutation is actually a very common mutation in lung cancer, more common than the other mutations that we have approved targeted therapies in the past, and it’s been difficult to treat.  

So now, we have another drug that shows a very good response rate after patients have failed chemo and immunotherapy. It’s still not as a dramatic response as we have seen on the third generation EGFR, ALK and ROS inhibitors, but still a really good promise for patients that didn’t have an option. 

So, that was good, they also updated more data on some of the third-generation drugs for ALK. So, we have seen in a prior conference called ACR the drug lorlatinib (Lorbrena), which a third-generation ALK inhibitor, has showed already improvements for patients that have failed prior therapies.  

But now they’re showing that for patients in the frontline setting when they first diagnose, receiving a third generation ALK inhibitor can improve brain responses. So, they saw a very dramatic has a ratio of .8, so basically over 80 percent of the brain disease was controlled, and in some complete responses were seen. 

And then, patients had a median survival that was over the three-year mark, which had been seen with the prior ALK inhibitors. So, I think it just goes to show that the progress in targeted therapies for lung cancers is exponential, that once we understand the genetic pathways, and we can develop better drugs. 

For example, this lorlatinib drug was actually developed in a way that it will stay in the brain longer, because we know that that’s an area where patients have failed. So, really understanding where the prior drugs have failed, where this resistance has been happened, allows us to develop better drugs for patients. So, I think it’s definitely very hopeful conference. I think the best part of the conference was people coming together, because I think that’s when investigators have the opportunity to collaborate and think of new ideas. 

So, I think that we don’t take it for granted that we were able to have an in-person conference, which hadn’t happened in two years. We had patient advocates that joined as well, so that’s also very important that the patient advocates are part of the research program, and ideas, and presentations.