Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death for both men and women in the United States. In the year 2001, it is

An estimated 157,000 patients died of lung cancer in the United States in the year 2000.[1] Although surgery can be curative, only about 20% of patients are amenable to complete surgical resection. Most of the other patients are treated with radiation

TOKYO, Japan-Amrubicin (SM-5887), a completely synthetic anthra-cycline, is "highly active" and well tolerated in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), Shunichi Negoro, MD, of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Osaka City General Hospital, Japan, said at the 9th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of lung and bronchus cancer. During 1988-1997, per capita cigarette smoking in California declined more than twice as rapidly as it did in the rest of the country. To characterize lung cancer incidence in

A new study presented at the Ninth World Congress on Lung Cancer demonstrated that topotecan (Hycamtin) in combination with carboplatin (Paraplatin) is active as a first-line treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Topotecan

The administration of docetaxel (Taxotere) immediately after conventional chemotherapy with cisplatin (Platinol)/etoposide and radiotherapy results in prolonged survival in patients with stage IIIB non-small-cell lung cancer, reported researchers from

CHICAGO-Although concomitant platinum-based systemic chemotherapy and thoracic radiotherapy have yielded the best short-term survival rates for patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), this approach produces few long-term survivors because local failure and distant metastasis are common.

NEW YORK-Interim results from an ongoing study of limited resections for some stage IA lung cancers are encouraging, a Japanese surgeon reported at the 3rd International Conference on Screening for Lung Cancer.

The combination of docetaxel (Taxotere) and gemcitabine (Gemzar) is active as first-line therapy for advanced, metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer and appears to be generally well tolerated, according to the results of a phase II study published in

NEW YORK-A program to screen for lung cancer that was remarkably successful in recruiting participants has produced some surprises and taught the investigators some lessons about what to expect from large-scale lung cancer screening.

In an era of information "overload" for the practicing oncologist, keeping up with the latest therapies for the many distinct clinical scenarios that arise in daily practice can be quite a challenge. Thus, a concise synthesis of the current knowledge in a field, such as provided in Lung Cancer Therapy Annual 2000 by Drs. Heine Hansen and Paul Bunn, can be quite useful. These authors, whose clinical expertise and contributions to lung cancer therapy are internationally acknowledged, offer a complete review of the literature pertaining to lung cancer therapy from the year 1999, including a review of abstracts from major meetings. A brief summary is provided at the end, outlining standard, accepted strategies based on histologic and stage-by-stage criteria. This text serves as a reference that summarizes the major existing literature, evaluates the strength of the evidence, and makes reasonable recommendations on how to proceed with clinical care.

TOKYO, Japan-Large, multicenter trials underway in the United Kingdom are questioning whether chemotherapy is actually worth it for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Jeremy Steele, MD, of the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Imaging, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

Ravi Salgia, MD, PhD, and colleagues at Dana-Farber Cancer Center presented an encouraging follow-up report on an initial clinical trial of Cell Genesys’ GVAX lung cancer vaccine at the Ninth World Conference on Lung Cancer in Tokyo,

NEW YORK-The development of computers and diagnostic platforms is facilitating mass screening for lung cancer not only with helical CT but also with sputum cytology, according to Melvyn S. Tockman, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and director, Program in Molecular Screening, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, University of South Florida, Tampa.

WASHINGTON-California’s aggressive tobacco control efforts, which include raising tobacco taxes and using some of that revenue for prevention efforts, appear to have played a significant role in the state’s decrease in lung cancer rates, according to a new collaborative study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Health Services.

NEW YORK-Thinner multislice CT scans are increasing the effectiveness of lung cancer screening, a German investigator said at the 3rd International Conference on Screening for Lung Cancer. U. Joseph Schoepf, MD, of the Institute of Clinical Radiology, University of Munich, showed images from 1 mm slices achieved with the Siemens Volume Zoom. "Obviously, we use the fastest rotation mode that we have available," he said. "That’s a 500 millisecond rotation. With a collimation of 1 mm, that allows us to cover the entire chest in a single breath-hold of about 20 to 25 seconds."

There will be approximately 40,000 new cases of small-cell lung cancer this year. Prior to 1990, there were several agents with single-agent response rates of 30% to nearly 90% in the untreated small-cell lung cancer population

Cisplatin (Platinol)-based chemotherapy has been the standard systemic therapy for both non-small-cell and small-cell lung cancer for the past 2 decades, though the efficacy and benefit remain modest. Recently, several novel

Chemotherapy is currently the main treatment for all stages of small-cell lung cancer. In extensive disease, etoposide/cisplatin (Platinol) is standard treatment, and in limited disease, etoposide/cisplatin with early concurrent

Survival in lung cancer patients has not improved over the past 2 decades. Irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11), a semisynthetic analog of the quinoline-based alkaloid camptothecin, is one of several new drugs that have demonstrated promising activity in the treatment of lung cancer in recent years. This article gives a brief overview of the mechanism, development history, and current uses of this agent. [ONCOLOGY 15(Suppl 1):6-7, 2001]

Preclinical data suggest that irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11), a novel topoisomerase I inhibitor, has exhibited promising activity in the treatment of lung cancer. In a phase II study of non-small-cell lung cancer, irinotecan

The management of non-small-cell lung cancer is undergoing rapid evolution. Although the advent of combined-modality therapy has led to improved survival, most patients eventually succumb to the disease. The arrival of a

The quest for new, active chemotherapy regimens for lung cancer is an ongoing, dynamic process that has become more challenging in the past 10 years due to the increased number of "active" agents.

Topoisomerase I inhibitors have demonstrated significant activity in non-small-cell lung cancer. In phase II studies, particularly in Japan, single-agent irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11) has produced response rates as high

TOKYO-A platinum-based regimen including the investigational antifolate pemetrexed disodium (Alimta) is active and well tolerated in stage IIIb/IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the final results of a phase II trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group and presented at the 9th World Conference on Lung Cancer. The drug may also represent a new option for patients with mesothelioma.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is recruiting 3,000 current and former smokers for its Lung Screening Study, a year-long study of spiral computed tomography (CT) scans for lung cancer screening. Although the study will not determine if the

HAMBURG, Germany-GLOB-1 trial results, reported at the 25th Congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), have confirmed the combination of vinorelbine (Navelbine) and cisplatin (Platinol) as a chemotherapy reference standard in metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), raising questions about the role of three-drug combinations in this setting.

TOKYO-A regimen of paclitaxel (Taxol) and vinorelbine (Navelbine) in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) appears to yield results similar to those with platinum-based regimens, according to phase I/II studies presented at the 9th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

TOKYO-Neoadjuvant therapy with the taxane docetaxel (Taxotere) is well tolerated and boosts survival over local treatment alone in patients with radically treatable, locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), investigators reported at the Ninth World Conference on Lung Cancer.

The fastest growing segment of the US population is the group over the age of 65 years. In the next 30 years, this group will comprise over 20% of the population. Because 60% of all cancers occur in this age group, there will be an expected rise in the total cancer burden.