An educational activity offered by i3 Health has provided significant knowledge gains regarding strategies to enhance the clinical outcomes of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) Among the 238,340 new cases of lung cancer reported in the United States each year, approximately 14% of cases are classified as small cell, a more aggressive subtype compared with its non–small cell counterpart. Most patients present with advanced or metastatic disease, making systemic therapy t...

For patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), cytotoxic chemotherapy remains a mainstay of treatment. However, myelosuppressive hematologic adverse events such as anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia pose a significant challenge to care. In a study recently presented at the 63rd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, a team of researchers led by Dr. Jerome Goldschmidt, medical oncologist at Blue Ridge Cancer Care and the ...

Last month, the FDA granted accelerated approval to lurbinectedin (ZepzelcaTM, Pharma Mar, S.A.) for adults with metastatic small-cell lung cancer experiencing disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. In this interview, Luis Paz-Ares, MD, principal investigator of the phase 2 basket trial PM1183-B-005-14 (Study B-005; NCT02454972), on which the approval was based, spoke with i3 Health about the approval's significance, notable adverse events with lurbinectedin, and the wealth...

The FDA has granted accelerated approval to lurbinectedin (ZepzelcaTM, Pharma Mar, S.A.) for adults with metastatic small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) experiencing disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. The efficacy of lurbinectedin, a selective inhibitor of oncogenic transcription, was investigated in a multinational, single-arm, open-label phase 2 basket trial, PM1183-B-005-14 (Study B-005; NCT02454972), which enrolled adults with SCLC previously treated with only one chemothe...

Patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) often do not respond to immune checkpoint blockade therapy alone. However, researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center now report that a combination of immune checkpoint blockade therapy and targeted therapies blocking DNA damage repair significantly shrinks tumors in mouse models of SCLC. "While the use of immunotherapy has revolutionized the way we treat lung cancer, we find that small cell lung cancers can escape the immune syst...

​The FDA has approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq®, Genentech, Inc.) in combination with carboplatin and etoposide as first-line treatment for patients with extensive-stage (ES) small cell lung cancer (SCLC). This is the first immunotherapy-based combination to be approved in the initial treatment of ES-SCLC. Extensive-stage SCLC has spread widely throughout the lung, to the other lung, to lymph nodes on the other side of the chest, to the fluid around the lung, or to other areas in the body, such a...

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda®, Merck) has received accelerated FDA approval for patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) experiencing disease progression during or after platinum-based chemotherapy following at least one other previous line of therapy. Metastatic SCLC, or extensive-stage SCLC, comprises around 15% of all lung cancers and occurs primarily in heavy smokers. It carries a dismal outlook; only 5% of patients with extensive-stage SCLC live for two years after diagnosis. Appro...

The phase 3 CASPIAN trial reports that adding durvalumab (Imfinzi®, AstraZeneca) to etoposide and a platinum therapy improves overall survival in patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). Many patients with small-cell lung cancer do not receive a diagnosis until after their disease has already reached the extensive stage, at which point the prognosis is poor. Because immunotherapy has shown some activity in ES-SCLC, the researchers of the CASPIAN trial assessed the efficacy...