Lung Cancer Research

FDA has approved alectinib (Alecensa) as a first-line treatment option for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer that is ALK positive. Alectinib is the third ALK inhibitor to be approved in this setting.

FDA approved the combination of dabrafenib (Tafinlar®) and trametinib (Mekinist®) for the treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has an alteration in the BRAF gene called the V600E mutation.

The FDA has approved the targeted therapy ceritinib as an initial treatment for patients with lung cancer that has a mutation in the ALK gene.

In this clinical trial, patients with newly diagnosed metastatic EGFR mutation-positive lung cancer will be randomly assigned to receive either the EGFR inhibitor afatinib alone or afatinib together with another EGFR inhibitor, cetuximab.

FDA approved the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab to be used with chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer.

On April 28, the FDA granted accelerated approval to the targeted therapy brigatinib (Alunbrig™) for patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and alterations in the ALK gene whose cancer has progressed during their initial therapy.

A demonstration project by the Veterans Health Administration is highlighting some of the complexities and challenges associated with the expansion of lung cancer screening in the United States.

Results from a phase III trial showed that the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) improved progression-free and overall survival among patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer compared with chemotherapy.

The FDA has approved atezolizumab and expanded the approval of pembrolizumab for some patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

A new study has identified a potentially critical vulnerability in lung cancers that have mutations in the KRAS gene, and showed that a drug already under study may be able to exploit it.

A blog post on a modeling study from NCI researchers suggesting that individualized, risk-based selection of ever-smokers for lung cancer screening may prevent more lung cancer deaths compared with current screening recommendations.

The FDA has approved uses of the targeted therapy crizotinib (Xalkori®) for patients with advanced lung cancer whose tumors have alterations in the ROS1 gene.

The FDA has approved alectinib to treat patients with metastatic ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer who have stopped responding to or who are unable to tolerate crizotinib.

The FDA has approved two targeted therapies, osimertinib (Tagrisso™) and necitumumab (Portrazza™), for the treatment of some patients with advanced lung cancer.

Patients with lung cancer are benefiting from the boom in targeted and immune-based therapies. With a series of precision medicine trials, NCI is keeping pace with the rapidly changing treatment landscape for lung cancer.

The FDA has approved the drug pembrolizumab to treat patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express a protein called PD-L1.

The FDA has approved nivolumab in combination with ipilimumab for advanced melanoma and nivolumab alone for advanced nonsquamous lung cancer.

The FDA last month approved gefitinib (Iressa) for the treatment of some patients with lung cancer, marking the drug’s return to the U.S. market after an earlier withdrawal.

A panel of three genetic markers may help to identify patients with early-stage lung cancer who have a very strong likelihood of their disease returning after surgery.

A pattern of gene expression in the cells of the upper airways of patients with suspected lung cancer can help to diagnose lung cancer more accurately than bronchoscopy alone.

Findings from an early phase clinical trial may point to a biomarker that identifies patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer most likely to respond to the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda®).

For the first time, Medicare will cover the costs of lung cancer screening for some beneficiaries, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on February 5.

Results from an international phase III trial show that crizotinib (Xalkori®) substantially extends progression-free survival in previously treated patients with advanced lung cancer whose tumors have a specific genetic mutation.

The Adjuvant Lung Cancer Enrichment Marker Identification and Sequencing Trials, or ALCHEMIST, will identify early-stage lung cancer patients with tumors that harbor certain uncommon genetic changes and evaluate whether drug treatments targeted against those changes can lead to improved survival.

Researchers from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have identified novel mutations in a well-known cancer-causing pathway in lung adenocarcinoma, the most common subtype of lung cancer.

A unique public-private collaboration today announced the initiation of the Lung Cancer Master Protocol (Lung-MAP) trial, a multi-drug, multi-arm, biomarker-driven clinical trial for patients with advanced squamous cell lung cancer.

Results from two early-phase clinical trials presented at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting provide further evidence that priming the immune system to attack tumors has potential as a treatment for certain cancers.