What Are Patients and Caregivers Talking About? Lung Cancer Biomarkers

What Are Patients and Caregivers Talking About? Lung Cancer Biomarkers By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Since the FDA approved the first targeted treatment for NSCLC in 2003, treatment decisions for NSCLC are increasingly made based on individual genomics.1,2  There are now 20 distinct biomarkers that serve as identification points differentiating cancer cells from healthy cells and distinguishing one expression of cancer from another. Science has progressed from identifying tumor cells on a slide to genetic and biochemical identification of NSCLC’s driving agents. Pharma companies are developing and improving increasingly targeted treatments.3 The science is also revealing just [...]

Good News about Lung Cancer? Thanks to Bench Science and Pharma

Good News about Lung Cancer? Thanks to Bench Science and Pharma By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Targeted therapies, monoclonal antibodies, and immune checkpoint inhibitors are the good news - making a significant difference in lung cancer mortality, a new study states. Published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the report said, “Mortality from NSCLC decreased even faster than the incidence ...and this decrease was associated with a substantial improvement in survival over time that corresponded to the timing of approval of targeted therapy.” 1Posts and reassurances that people read while visiting the American Lung Association’s Lung [...]