What Could Advances in Lung Cancer Research and Treatment Mean for You?
What Could Advances in Lung Cancer Research and Treatment Mean for You? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Lung cancer expert Dr. Manish Patel discusses how lung cancer treatment approaches have evolved, specifically around targeted therapy and immunotherapy. Dr. Patel also provides advice for learning about and participating in clinical trials.
Dr. Manish Patel is a medical oncologist and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation at the University of Minnesota. Learn more about Dr. Patel, here.
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
When it comes to lung cancer research and emerging treatment options, what are you excited about, specifically?
Dr. Patel:
Well, I’m really excited about the fact that in 2021 chemotherapy is really no longer the backbone of treatment. It’s really now become where we are really focusing on whether immunotherapy is the main modality of treatment or if it’s a targeted therapy.
And while we do still have chemotherapy and we use it, it’s not the main focus of our treatment. So, that’s really exciting. I personally am extremely excited about all of the advances in immunotherapy and the new methods that are coming across in new clinical trials to improve upon immune responses in patients with lung cancer.
Katherine Banwell:
When do you think a clinical trial should be considered for lung cancer treatment?
Dr. Patel:
Well, I think that’s a great question. And I think, honestly, it could be considered at any point in the patient’s treatment plan. Now, just to expound on that a little bit further, I think in the setting where a patient should be cured of their lung cancer with the treatment that we propose, we have to be careful that we are putting in adequate safeguards that the trial that we propose ensures that they’re receiving standard of care treatment but maybe something additional to try to improve upon that treatment.
On the other hand, if a patient has a more advanced cancer, then there is little bit more leeway in terms of the things that we can try to do. But of course, we always want to make sure that whatever we offer them, we have a reasonable expectation of working as well or better than the standard of care.
Katherine Banwell:
How can patients stay up to date on research?
Dr. Patel:
I think there are a couple of very useful resources online to stay abreast of things. A particular website that I think is very useful for patients is something called YouAndLungCancer.com.
And that is a fairly expansive portal that is patient-focused and really provides a lot of video tutorials on lung cancer, different treatments at different stages, new treatments that are available. And that’s a site that gets updated fairly regularly in terms of standard of care. And so, as we are in a phase where lung cancer research is really advancing very quickly, and these updates are important that they’re, you know, sort of sharing all of the new things that are coming along in lung cancer.
