Lung Cancer

Improve your smoking cessation program – click here to learn how.

Vaping devices, also known as e-cigarettes, are the new epidemic among young people in the United States, according to Nancy Sayegh-Rooney, RN, a lung nurse navigator on Staten Island, NY, and a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist who educates students in middle school and high school about the dangers of vaping.

On May 15, 2020, the FDA approved a new indication for the first immunotherapy combination with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo; BMS) and the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy; BMS) for the first-line treatment of adults with metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and PD-L1 expression of ≥1%, as determined by an FDA-approved test, but without EGFR or ALK genomic translocations.

Data from the TRACERx lung study suggest that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) may be a biomarker for the detection of postsurgical minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), suggesting which patients are at higher risk of relapse and require more aggressive adjuvant therapy.

Exploring second opinions allows patients to become more informed and secure in their choice of which treatment to pursue.

Who stands to benefit from lung cancer screening? Click here to find out.

As part of a mesothelioma advisory group, I and approximately 10 doctors from across the United States provide expert opinions on treatments and modalities for mesothelioma.

Nutrition plays an important role throughout the continuum of lung cancer. It is well documented that the best protection from lung cancer is to avoid smoking, but it is also protective to eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

On January 29, 2020, Eli Lilly announced that the FDA granted priority review to their New Drug Application for selpercatinib (LOXO-292) for the treatment of patients with advanced RET fusion-positive non–small-cell lung cancer, RET-mutant medullary thyroid cancer, and RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer. The FDA is aiming to provide its decision on the approval of selpercatinib in the third quarter of 2020.

Eye-opening comments from the people who stand to benefit from navigation most. Here’s what they said.