Lung Cancer Making Education Easy
In this issue: HDREB for recurrent bronchial carcinoma CAIX level: prognostic marker in NSCLC? Vitamin B6 may lower lung cancer risk High risk for false-positive lung cancer screening CT-guided transbronchial biopsy and diagnostic yield Gefitinib vs erlotinib in NSCLC A nanotherapeutic platform for treating NSCLC Carboplatin/pemetrexed/ bevacizumab in advanced NSCLC Erlotinib maintenance therapy in NSCLC ERCC1-status, toxicity and QOL in NSCLC
Issue 1 - 2010
Welcome to the first edition of Lung Cancer Research Review, a unique Australian publication bringing you some of the most important research from around the world every month.
Lung Cancer Research Review has been established to make life easier for the oncology community in Australia. Every month 10,000 scientific publications are printed worldwide containing a multitude of new studies, many devoted entirely to this specialty. In short, keeping up is hard and requires significant time to screen out what is irrelevant to your practice or country. We aim to save you time by identifying what’s important so you can spend more time doing what you’re best at. The Review is a summary of what we think are some of the most significant new papers, plus local commentary on why they are important and how they can potentially affect practice. Selection and review of the trials is carried out independently. The Review also provides website links to the abstract or fully published papers so you can make your own judgements. If you have friends or colleagues within Australia who would like to receive our publication, send us their contact email and we will include them for the next issue. We hope you find this first edition stimulating reading and welcome your comments and feedback. Kind Regards Dr Matthew Peters
[email protected]
Treatment of recurrent bronchial carcinoma: the role of high-dose-rate endoluminal brachytherapy Authors: Hauswald H et al Summary: This study reports outcomes and toxicity associated with high-dose-rate endoluminal brachytherapy (HDREB) administered to 41 patients for symptomatic recurrent bronchial carcinoma. All patients had previously undergone external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) with a median dose of 56 Gy. The median HDREB dose applied was 15 Gy. The median time interval between primary EBRT and reirradiation was 9 months. After a median 6.7-month follow-up, the 6-, 12-, and 24-month overall survival rates were 58%, 18%, and 7%, respectively. The median overall survival time was 6.7 months. Thirty patients achieved local remission (73%). Ten patients (24%) showed no response or progressive disease within 8 weeks after treatment. In 1 patient, treatment response was not documented. The 6-, 12-, and 24-month local control rates were 38%, 17%, and 3%, respectively. The median local progression-free survival time was 4 months. Prognostic factors were a total dose of ≥15 Gy of HDREB (p=0.029) and a Karnofsky performance score of ≥80% (p=0.0012). Death was attributed to locoregional progression in 11 patients (27%), distant metastases in 10 (24%), fatal haemorrhage in 6 (15%), and other causes in 12 (29%). None of the patients with locally controlled disease showed grade 3 or 4 late effects. Comment: This is thankfully a much less common problem than 20 or more years ago. The broad aim of treatment for proximal bronchial carcinomas is to manage this locally to achieve local symptom control and to avert airway obstruction as a cause of death. Once external beam RT has failed, this audit validates the use of brachytherapy. Reference: Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2010;77(2):373-7. http://www.redjournal.org/article/S0360-3016(09)00818-9/abstract
www.researchreview.com.au
a RESEARCH REVIEW publication 1
Lung Cancer Research Review
High levels of carbonic anhydrase IX in tumour tissue and plasma are biomarkers of poor prognostic in patients with non-small cell lung cancer
Serum B vitamin levels and risk of lung cancer Authors: Johansson M et al
Summary: This study investigated whether expression of the carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) enzyme in tumour tissue and/or plasma serves as a prognostic factor in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A total of 555 NSCLC tissue samples were generated for quantification of CAIX expression. An ELISA assay determined CAIX plasma levels in 209 of these NSCLC patients and in 58 healthy individuals. CAIX tissue overexpression correlated with shorter overall survival (OS) (p=0.05) and disease-specific survival (DSS) of patients (p=0.002). The CAIX plasma level was significantly higher in patients with NSCLC than in healthy individuals (p
