Biomarkers

Testing and Treating Lung Cancer

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When I was diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2013, The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre tested for two specific kinds of (non-small cell) lung cancer: EGFR and ALK. How thankful we are that they routinely tested for ALK because knowing my specific diagnosis has made a huge difference in terms of my treatment. Because we knew specifically what kind of lung cancer, we could choose the best treatments which have kept me going for over eight years! How thankful we are for testing and treatments.

During those eight years, advances in lung cancer research have been outstanding! Now we can treat so many more kinds of lung cancers. It can be challenging for hospitals to keep up with testing, to keep testing for all the treatable types of lung cancer. I’m happy to report that now The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre tests for eleven specific types of lung cancer: PD-L1, EGFR, ALK, ROS1, RET, KRAS, BRAF, HER2, MET, NTRK, and PIK3CA.

Clinical trials can be the best way for some people affected by lung cancer to get the newest treatments, so testing must be aligned with treatments available by clinical trials or compassionate release programs.

Lung cancer research will continue to offer increasing treatment options for people affected by lung cancer. As more advances in the testing and treating of cancer arise, it matters that hospitals ensure that testing aligns with available treatment options.

How many types of lung cancer does your cancer centre test for?

(Note: this testing can also called by other names, for example: biomarker testing, molecular testing, precision oncology, tumour testing, genomic testing, … )

#ResearchMatters

#ChooseHope

Lung cancer research brings real hope!

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More good news from lung cancer researchers!

Early data indicates that Repotrectinib shows promise for treating people with ROS1 or NTRK lung cancer! Turning Point Therapeutics is working with the US-FDA to modify this clinical trial to potentially accelerate approval times.* We are very excited about this future potential for our friends with ROS1 or NTRK lung cancer!

John has been living with NTRK lung cancer for 6.5 years.

John has been living with NTRK lung cancer for 6.5 years. Thanks to his oncologist, Bayer, and permission from Health Canada, he has been able to take Larotrectinib (which targets NTRK cancer) for the past 16 months. Data from the phase 1 clinical trial for Larotrectinib (LOXO-101) was presented in 2016, showing that it works well for people with NTRK. In 2019, Larotrectinib (“Vitrakvi”) was approved by Health Canada, and not just for lung cancer. Larotrectinib (“Vitrakvi”) works against NTRK cancer in multiple sites, including colon, melanoma and thyroid. Most importantly for John and those who care about him, Larotrectinib is working well for him. Research matters, and so does access to new treatments.

This may be the first time you’ve heard of NTRK lung cancer. It is one of the more newly talked about kinds of lung cancers. It is only in recent years that we’ve had treatment options for it, and many cancer centres in Canada don’t even test for it yet. I often wonder how many people there are who have NTRK like John, but are not receiving the appropriate treatment because they’ve never been tested for NTRK.

If people who are diagnosed with lung cancer don’t get biomarker testing, then no one knows what specific kind of lung cancer they have. Biomarker testing matters, because if we don’t know which specific kind of lung cancer, they can potentially miss out on years of good quality life. That is unacceptable. 100% biomarker testing matters.

* You can read more here.

#ResearchMatters #AccessMatters #BiomarkerTestingMatters #HopeMatters