Oncology Brothers Advancements in Oncology Event Covers Key Updates in Lung Cancer

With so many ground-breaking presentations on lung cancer during the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, it was critical to break down the key data and implications for practice.

The Oncology Brothers Advancements in Oncology event, held on Saturday, June 1, featured key insights on new lung cancer data presented at the annual meeting, in addition to panels on breast, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary cancers.

The Oncology Brothers, Rahul Gosain, MD, MBA, and Rohit Gosain, MD, sat down with panelist Rami Manochakian, MD, FASCO, of the Mayo Clinic, Florida, to break down what community oncologists should know about the evolution of treatment for lung cancer. They explained the importance of communicating these updates to oncologists who are responsible for treating a wide range of patients.

“Believe it or not, this is truly how it plays out, from iron deficiency, to breast cancer, to colon cancer, and then the next patient is lung cancer,” Dr. Rahul Gosain said. “Dr. Manochakian, thank you so much for joining us. We have a lot to cover. The [American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting] had a lot of lung cancer data, and this is great. It means we have more treatment options for our patients.”

Dr. Manochakian agreed and started by reflecting on the high volume of lung cancer updates and how rapidly treatment has evolved, remarking on the importance of the work to communicate these updates to community oncologists, who often see a wide range of patients across disease states.

“I’m a lung cancer specialist, and I could barely keep up with what’s happening in lung cancer,” he said. “For [The Oncology Brothers] to be able to capture all this data, digest it, and present on it, it speaks at a very high volume, and also [speaks] to the importance of the job of community oncologists, when we know 60% of patients are being treated in the community,” Dr. Manochakian said.

The annual meeting was a prime example of this, with many read-outs from studies that could shape the future of lung cancer care. The Oncology Brothers and Dr. Manochakian highlighted a wide range of studies across lung cancer types and patient populations.

“From a non-small cell standpoint, in the stage III setting, based off the LAURA trial, after chemoradiation, look out for osimertinib being in the consolidation setting, where we’ve also been utilizing off-label ALK-positive alectinib. But again, this is not [US Food and Drug Administration]-approved,” Dr. Rohit Gosain said.

They also highlighted data in metastatic disease, including 5-year follow-up data from the CROWN study of lorlatinib versus crizotinib in treatment-naïve patients with advanced ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

“In the metastatic setting, lorlatinib was compared [with] crizotinib. Incredible [progression-free survival] curves. In one of the memes, a truck was sliding through these curves, that’s how much difference there was,” Dr. Rohit Gosain said. “The other important choice here is alectinib.”

They discussed the MARIPOSA study of amivantamab plus lazertinib versus osimertinib in first-line EGFR-mutated advanced NSCLC with biomarkers of high-risk disease and concluded by reflecting on the key developments in the small cell lung cancer treatment landscape.

“In small cell, tarlatamab was recently approved, and look out for ADRIATIC, which is, potentially, going to be practice-changing,” Dr. Rohit Gosain said.