16th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) Presidential Symposium: Summary and Clinical Implications

Gilberto Lopes, MD, MBA

October 12, 2015

Moving Forward

In conclusion, the 2015 WCLC presidential symposium featured four presentations with important clinical and research implications. EGFR FISH testing and treatment with cetuximab and other EGFR monoclonal antibodies may become practice changing in the near future. The addition of bevacizumab to standard adjuvant chemotherapy does not improve outcomes and should not be used in clinical settings outside of trials at this time. Smoking cessation is an extremely important intervention, and we now have data to prove that it decreases mortality in the setting of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer. Finally, we now know more about the genomic basis of EGFR-mutated lung cancer as we learned that these mutations are truncal events and that, before treatment, patients have a low mutational burden, which increases as their tumors become resistant to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The high clonal diversity in truncal mutations also provides an explanation for the appearance of resistance and identifies new targets for therapy. We still have a lot of work to do!

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Cite this: 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) Presidential Symposium: Summary and Clinical Implications - Medscape - Oct 12, 2015.

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