ALK

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    New Targeted Treatment Options for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in 2021

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Chemotherapy was once the only treatment available for metastatic or advanced non-small lung cancer (NSCLC). But the situation has changed dramatically in recent years. NSCLC may harbor mutations that drive cancer development, and many of these mutations can be targeted with precision drugs that inhibit specific mutant proteins. Targeted drugs not only often prolong survival of patients compared to chemotherapy, but they also improve… Read more »

  •   Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Excerpt from Targeted Oncology:

    “Adult patients with ALK-positive, locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had not received a prior ALK inhibitor experienced a more than 50% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death with treatment with brigatinib (Alunbrig), compared with the first-line standard of care, crizotinib.

    “Brigatinib demonstrated superior progression-free survival (PFS) compared with crizotinib, corresponding to a 51% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death (HR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.33-74; P = .0007), according to first interim analysis results presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

    Go to full article published by Targeted Oncology on Sep 26, 2018.

    If you’re wondering whether this story applies to your own cancer case or a loved one’s, we invite you to get support from Cancer Commons.

  •   Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Excerpt from Healio:

    “Brigatinib conferred substantial intracranial responses and durable PFS among patients with brain metastases and ALK-positive, non-small cell lung cancer previously treated with crizotinib, according to ongoing study results.

    ” ‘Crizotinib [Xalkori; Pfizer, EMD Serono], the first licensed ALK inhibitor, is very active but has clear central nervous system liability from poor CNS penetration. All of the next-generation ALK inhibitor drugs have started to show CNS efficacy consistent with their superior activity in the brain compared with crizotinib,’ D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, director of thoracic oncology at University of Colorado, told HemOnc Today. ‘The whole clinical trials field has had to evolve around these events in terms of how we should capture and present CNS data. Brigatinib [Alunbrig; Takeda Oncology, Ariad] was one of the drugs that helped with this.’ ”

    Go to full article published by Healio on July 25, 2018.

    If you’re wondering whether this story applies to your own cancer case or a loved one’s, we invite you to get support from Cancer Commons.

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    Targetable Mutations in NSCLC: More Testing Needed!

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the lung, a major subtype of non-small lung cancer (NSCLC), nowadays triggers mandatory testing of tumor tissue for alterations in four genes: EGFR, ALK, ROS1, and more recently, BRAF. If present, these alterations predict sensitivity to specific targeted drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that work better and often longer than standard chemotherapy, and are better… Read more »