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Understanding Neoadjuvant Therapy for Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Author(s):
Nisha Mohindra, MD, and Christopher Towe, MD, discuss what early-stage non-small cell lung cancer treatment options have looked like in the past and a more recent treatment option, neoadjuvant therapy. Sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb.
Danielle Hicks: We're going to jump into some of the newer things happening, exciting things happening, in early-stage lung cancer in a little bit. But before that, can you talk historically about somebody who was diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer and how they would have been treated?
Dr. Christopher Towe: Yeah, traditionally, if patients had early-stage lung cancer, without spread the first-line treatment was surgery, and surgery varies. The type of operation and the extent of surgery depended a lot on not just the size and location of the tumor, but also patient risk factors. So it's important to talk to an experienced provider about whether surgery is appropriate, not just for the type of cancer, but also for its location and your other medical problems. But more importantly, I think it's important to recognize that surgery was not enough for every patient. Some patients would have their tumors comeback after surgery, and we call that recurrence.
Dr. Nisha Mohindra: Traditionally, if the lung tumor can't be removed by surgery because of size, location, or even patient lung function, we can treat that tumor with chemo and radiation.
Danielle Hicks: One treatment option we would like to discuss today is neoadjuvant therapy. This is a big word that people might not be familiar with. Dr. Mohindra, can you tell us more about what neoadjuvant therapy is and its role?
Dr. Nisha Mohindra: Of course, yes neoadjuvant is a big word not one that we typically hear about, but neoadjuvant treatment refers to treatment, cancer treatment, given as the first step with the goal of shrinking the tumor before the main treatment, which is typically surgery. Some of the goals of neoadjuvant therapy can be to reduce the tumor volume making the potential for a complete surgical resection more possible. Neoadjuvant therapy can also allow us to start treating small numbers of cancer cells that may have left the primary tumor and spread to other parts of the body that we can't see on our typical diagnostic testing.
