Science Daily reports: Drug Combination Improves Outcome For Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

A new, international study found that the combination of two drugs delays disease progression for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results from the Phase III "ATLAS" trial were presented May 30 by Dr. Vincent Miller of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

The goal of the study was to determine whether adding erlotinib (Tarceva®), a targeted agent, to maintenance therapy with bevacizumab (Avastin®), an agent commonly used as a component of treatment for advanced NSCLC would delay disease progression. Maintenance therapy involves using one or more agents of a chemotherapy regimen, but not the entire regimen, to delay disease progression and possibly improve survival after patients have previously received stronger standard chemotherapy, which can have significant side effects.

"This is the first study to show the addition of erlotinib to maintenance therapy prolongs progression-free survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer," said Dr. Miller, a thoracic oncologist at MSKCC and one of the study's lead authors. "Knowing which patients will get the greatest benefit from this combination, based on the identification of biomarkers, will be an important next step in this research," Dr. Miller added.

Read more.

Science Daily reports: Activated Stem Cells In Damaged Lungs Could Be First Step Toward Cancer

Stem cells that respond after a severe injury in the lungs of mice may be a source of rapidly dividing cells that lead to lung cancer, according to a team of American and British researchers.

"There are chemically resistant, local-tissue stem cells in the lung that only activate after severe injury," said Barry R. Stripp, Ph.D., professor of medicine and cell biology at Duke University Medical Center. "Cigarette smoke contains a host of toxic chemicals, and smoking is one factor that we anticipate would stimulate these stem cells. Our findings demonstrate that, with severe injury, the resulting repair response leads to large numbers of proliferating cells that are derived from these rare stem cells."

Stripp said this finding could be related to the increased incidence of lung cancer in people with chronic disease states, in particular among cigarette smokers.

The findings were published in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of May 25.

Read more.

Lung Cancer Alliance Calls American Cancer Society's Claim of Progress Selective

Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) said that the American Cancer Society's claim of "progress in cancer fight" earlier this week was based on "selective culling of statistics and ignores the dismal truth that we have made very little progress on the most lethal cancers, including lung cancer, which causes one in every two cancer deaths, or in metastatic cancer of any kind."

LCA President & CEO Laurie Fenton Ambrose agreed that progress has been made with certain cancers such as breast, prostate and colon which have widely accepted screening tests for early detection and ACS deserves credit for promulgating information to the public on the importance of these tests.

"But this is not time to be celebrating when half of all cancers still have survival rates of less than 50% and when we are facing a 45% increase in the overall number of new cancer cases by the year 2030," she said, citing a recent report on the upcoming tidal wave in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"There could be no stronger wake-up call," she said. "We can't continue to tout selected changes in incidence and mortality rates over a limited number of cancers over a limited period of time. We have to step back and look at the big picture and try to figure out why we have not done better and where we have to go from here."

Read more.

Dr. West of GRACE says, Hats off to Bonnie J. Addario: Reaching out to Oprah in a BIG Way

Read more.

Top NC advocate of smoking ban has lung surgery

The powerful state House Democratic leader who drove the Legislature to pass a statewide indoor smoking ban had surgery Tuesday to remove part of his lung, his legislative aide said.

House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, had surgery at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem and was recovering in the hospital's intensive care unit, his legislative assistant, Carol Bowers, said after speaking with the legislator's wife, Ellen.

Holliman had a lower lobe of his right lung removed, Bowers said. Test results will determine later whether the removed section was cancerous, Bowers said. He was in stable condition Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Freda Springs said.

Holliman, a former smoker, previously had a cancerous tumor removed from his lung in September 2007. He also was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1999, but declared himself cured in 2005.

Holliman's surgery came a week after he was collecting plaudits from Gov. Beverly Perdue as the driving force behind legislation that will ban smoking inside restaurants and bars when it takes effect in January. Perdue called the law a turning point for the state that remains the country's largest tobacco grower.

Read more.