Integrated intErventional bronchoscopy in the treatment of locally adVanced non-small lung cancER with central Malignant airway Obstructions: a multicentric REtrospective study (EVERMORE).

Objectives: Despite new therapeutic perspectives, the presence of central airways occlusion (CAO) in patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is associated with poor survival. There is no clear evidence on the clinical impact of interventional bronchoscopy as a part of an integrated treatment to cure these patients.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted in two teaching hospitals over a 10 years period (January 2010-January 2020) comparing patients with NSCLC at stage IIIB and CAO at disease onset treated with chemotherapy/radiotherapy (standard therapy-ST) with those receiving interventional bronchoscopy plus ST (integrated treatment-IT).

Gene mutations in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC): results of a panel of 6 genes in a cohort of Italian patients.

Background: No target therapies are presently available in the treatment of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). We investigated the presence of potentially drugable mutations in the EGFR, c-MET, BRAF, KRAS, PDGFRa and c-KIT genes in a retrospective series of SCLC from 2 Italian Institutions. Correlations with immunohistochemical, clinical and outcome features were evaluated.

Fishing for ALK with immunohistochemistry may predict response to crizotinib.

Background: ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) gene rearrangement is a novel oncogenic driver in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) against which a selective inhibitor, namely crizotinib, is effective. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is considered the reference method in selecting patients with ALK-positive tumors for treatment with crizotinib.

Case Report: We report the case of a 42-year-old non-smoking woman with an advanced pulmonary ALK FISH-negative adenocarcinoma characterized by strong immunohistochemical expression of ALK fusion protein.

EGFR and K-ras mutations along the spectrum of pulmonary epithelial tumors of the lung and elaboration of a combined clinicopathologic and molecular scoring system to predict clinical responsiveness to EGFR inhibitors.

We tested 418 neoplasms along the whole spectrum of primary lung tumor histotypes for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and K-ras mutations. Clinicopathologic data from 154 patients undergoing treatment with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) were retrospectively studied. A scoring system assigning a score for each positive or negative characteristic (+1, female sex, nonsmoking status, adenocarcinoma histotype, Asian ethnicity, and EGFR mutation; -1, current smoker and K-ras mutation; and 0, male sex, ex-smoker, nonadenocarcinoma histotype, and no mutations) was elaborated and tested with EGFR-TKI response.

Role of chemotherapy and the receptor tyrosine kinases KIT, PDGFRalpha, PDGFRbeta, and Met in large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung.

Purpose: Pulmonary large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) is a relatively uncommon, high-grade neuroendocrine tumor sharing several features with small-cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) but currently considered as a variant of non-SCLC and accordingly treated with poor results. Little is known about the optimal therapy of LCNEC and the possible therapeutic molecular targets.

Patients And Methods: We reviewed 83 patients with pure pulmonary LCNEC to investigate their clinicopathologic features, therapeutic strategy, and immunohistochemical expression and the mutational status of the receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) KIT, PDGFRalpha, PDGFRbeta, and Met.