Publications by authors named "Gubens M"

Introduction: Among older adults with cancer receiving chemotherapy, frailty indices predict OS and toxicity. Given the increased use of immunotherapy and targeted therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC), we evaluated frailty and Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) among older adults with aNSCLC receiving chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and/or targeted therapy.

Methods: Patients aged ≥ 65 with aNSCLC starting systemic therapy with non-curative intent underwent geriatric assessments over 6 months.

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Introduction: The multidisciplinary American Radium Society Thoracic Committee was assigned to create appropriate use criteria on cardiac toxicity prevention and management for patients undergoing radiotherapy.

Methods: A systematic review of the current literature was conducted. Case variants of patients with thoracic malignancies undergoing radiation were created based on presence or absence of cardiovascular risk factors and treatment-related risks assessed by dose exposure to the heart and cardiac substructures.

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Introduction: Definitive radiation therapy is considered standard therapy for medically inoperable early-stage NSCLC. Nevertheless, for patients with tumors located near structures such as the proximal tracheobronchial tree, esophagus, heart, spinal cord, and brachial plexus, the optimal management regimen is controversial. The objective was to develop expert multidisciplinary consensus guidelines on managing medically inoperable NSCLC located in a central or ultracentral location relative to critical organs at risk.

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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the US and globally. The mortality from lung cancer has been declining, due to a reduction in incidence and advances in treatment. Although recent success in developing targeted and immunotherapies for lung cancer has benefitted patients, it has also expanded the complexity of potential treatment options for health care providers.

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Purpose: Patients with metastatic or advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) need biomarker testing, including, in most cases, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and PD-L1, to identify options for targeted therapies and to optimally incorporate immune checkpoint inhibitors into therapeutic regimens. We sought to examine real-world patterns of biomarker testing, quantify interphysician practice variation, and correlate testing with clinical outcomes.

Methods: We extracted real-world data from a nationwide electronic health record-derived deidentified database from 17,165 patients diagnosed with advanced NSCLC between 2018 and 2021 and receiving care in the community setting.

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Purpose: To assess the safety and efficacy of the third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with surgically resectable stage I-IIIA -mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Patients And Methods: This was a multi-institutional phase II trial of neoadjuvant osimertinib for patients with surgically resectable stage I-IIIA (American Joint Committee on Cancer [AJCC] V7) -mutated (L858R or exon 19 deletion) NSCLC (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03433469).

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Introduction: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) can yield remarkable clinical responses in subsets of patients with solid tumors but can also often lead to immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Predictive features of clinically severe irAEs leading to cessation of ICIs have yet to be established. Using data from 1,327 patients with lung cancer treated with ICIs between 2009 and 2022 at four academic medical centers, we evaluated the association of a germline polygenic risk score for autoimmune disease and discontinuation of ICIs due to irAEs.

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Article Synopsis
  • The NCCN Guidelines for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer offer comprehensive recommendations for diagnosing and managing NSCLC, including ongoing monitoring and treatment options.
  • Recent updates include new targeted therapies approved by the FDA, reflecting the latest clinical data.
  • The guidelines specifically highlight treatment strategies for advanced or metastatic NSCLC that have actionable molecular biomarkers.
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Importance: The treatment of locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (LA-NSCLC) has been informed by more than 5 decades of clinical trials and other relevant literature. However, controversies remain regarding the application of various radiation and systemic therapies in commonly encountered clinical scenarios.

Objective: To develop case-referenced consensus and evidence-based guidelines to inform clinical practice in unresectable LA-NSCLC.

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Immune checkpoint inhibitor-mediated colitis (IMC) is a common adverse event of treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI). We hypothesize that genetic susceptibility to Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) predisposes to IMC. In this study, we first develop a polygenic risk scores for CD (PRS) and UC (PRS) in cancer-free individuals and then test these PRSs on IMC in a cohort of 1316 patients with ICI-treated non-small cell lung cancer and perform a replication in 873 ICI-treated pan-cancer patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Pleural mesothelioma is the most common type, accounting for about 85% of all cases.
  • * The NCCN Guidelines for Mesothelioma: Pleural provide updated recommendations on diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up, with recent revisions focusing on disease classification and systemic therapy options.
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Lung neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) have few known predictors of survival. We investigated associations of sociodemographic, clinicopathologic, and treatment factors with overall survival (OS) and lung cancer-specific survival (LCSS) for incident lung NET cases (typical or atypical histology) in the California Cancer Registry (CCR) from 1992 to 2019. OS was estimated with the Kaplan-Meier method and compared by sociodemographic and disease factors univariately with the log-rank test.

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Mesothelioma is a rare cancer originating in mesothelial surfaces of the peritoneum, pleura, and other sites. These NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) focus on peritoneal mesothelioma (PeM). The NCCN Guidelines for PeM provide recommendations for workup, diagnosis, and treatment of primary as well as previously treated PeM.

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Although pembrolizumab confers clinical benefit in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), only a subset of patients will respond due to a heterogenous tumor microenvironment. KEYNOTE-495/KeyImPaCT is an ongoing biomarker-directed, adaptively randomized phase 2 study investigating first-line pembrolizumab (200 mg every 3 weeks) + lenvatinib (20 mg daily), anti-CTLA-4 quavonlimab (25 mg every 6 weeks) or anti-LAG-3 favezelimab (200 mg or 800 mg every 3 weeks) in advanced NSCLC. Patients were categorized by T-cell-inflamed gene expression profile (TcellGEP) and tumor mutational burden (TMB) status and randomly assigned 1:1:1 to receive pembrolizumab + lenvatinib, pembrolizumab + quavonlimab or pembrolizumab + favezelimab.

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Article Synopsis
  • Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have vastly improved cancer treatment but can lead to serious immune-related adverse events (irAEs), particularly immune checkpoint inhibitor-mediated colitis (IMC), which can mimic diseases like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis.
  • Researchers hypothesized that genetic predispositions related to these diseases might increase the risk of developing IMC in cancer patients receiving ICIs, and they developed polygenic risk scores (PRS) to test this in a study of 1,316 non-small cell lung cancer patients.
  • The study found that higher PRS scores were linked to an increased risk of all-grade and severe IMC, suggesting that genetic testing could help identify patients at higher risk and enable better monitoring and
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Importance: Thymic carcinoma is rare, and its oncologic management is controversial due to a paucity of prospective data. For this reason, multidisciplinary consensus guidelines are crucial to guide oncologic management.

Objective: To develop expert multidisciplinary consensus guidelines on the management of common presentations of thymic carcinoma.

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Article Synopsis
  • The NCCN Guidelines outline best practices for treating patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC).
  • The focus is on neoadjuvant (before surgery) and adjuvant (after surgery) systemic therapy options for patients whose cancer can be surgically removed.
  • These insights aim to help healthcare providers choose effective treatment paths for eligible patients with resectable NSCLC.
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Introduction: mutations drive a subset of NSCLC. Patients harboring the common mutations, deletion of exon 19 and L858R, respond well to osimertinib, a third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Nevertheless, the effect of osimertinib on NSCLC with atypical mutations is not well described.

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Article Synopsis
  • - In patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ALK or ROS1 mutations, a study tested the combination of ceritinib (an ALK/ROS1 inhibitor) and trametinib (a MEK inhibitor) to overcome resistance to previous treatments.
  • - The study enrolled nine patients and showed common side effects like diarrhea (100%) and rash (89%), with an overall response rate of 22% and a disease control rate of 56%; median progression-free survival was 3 months.
  • - The findings suggest that this drug combination is safe and tolerable, with some patients experiencing clinical benefits despite prior treatments; further investigation is warranted.
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Introduction: There is a paucity of data on immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) plus doublet chemotherapy (C) in patients with advanced lung cancer whose tumor harbors an actionable mutation. We sought to provide insight into the role of this combination in relation to chemotherapy alone in this patient population.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study at the five University of California National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

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NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) provide recommended management for patients with NSCLC, including diagnosis, primary treatment, surveillance for relapse, and subsequent treatment. Patients with metastatic lung cancer who are eligible for targeted therapies or immunotherapies are now surviving longer. This selection from the NCCN Guidelines for NSCLC focuses on targeted therapies for patients with metastatic NSCLC and actionable mutations.

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Purpose: To provide evidence-based recommendations to practicing clinicians on management of patients with stage III non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods: An Expert Panel of medical oncology, thoracic surgery, radiation oncology, pulmonary oncology, community oncology, research methodology, and advocacy experts was convened to conduct a literature search, which included systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials published from 1990 through 2021. Outcomes of interest included survival, disease-free or recurrence-free survival, and quality of life.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how older adults (aged 65 and above) with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) maintain their mobility during cancer treatment, focusing on their life-space mobility before and during therapy.
  • Researchers conducted geriatric assessments using the Life-Space Assessment (LSA) tool at multiple time points, revealing an average decline in mobility just one month after treatment initiation.
  • Findings indicate that higher anxiety levels correlate with greater mobility decline, while a lower pretreatment body mass index is linked to improved mobility over time, highlighting the importance of addressing these factors in patient care.
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Background: A clinically-certified gene expression profile improved survival in a cohort of stage I-IIA NSCLC patients by identifying those likely to benefit from adjuvant intervention. EGFR mutation status has not provided this type of predictive risk discrimination in stage IA NSCLC, and overtreatment of low-risk stage IB patients may have limited the overall benefit seen recently in the adjuvant application of a third-generation TKI. We compared EGFR mutation data to molecular risk stratification in a prospective, early-stage cohort.

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