brain metastases

Brain metastases are especially common in anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with a cumulative incidence of over 50% and associated with a poor prognosis, high symptom burden, and decreased quality of life. In this podcast, authors discuss the clinical significance of controlling the onset of brain metastases, considerations in selecting a first-line therapy option, efficacy and safety observed in patients with and without brain metastases, and rationales for using lorlatinib upfront versus reserving for a later line in therapy.

 

This podcast is published open access in Advances in Therapy and is fully citeable. You can access the original published podcast article through the Advances in Therapy website and by using this link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12325-023-02606-x. All conflicts of interest can be found online.

 

Open Access This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The material in this podcast is included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

Recent studies in NSCLC patients with ALK or EGFR mutations and brain metastases, demonstrated greater benefit from the use of specific targeted therapies. In this Podcast, Associate Professor Paul Mitchell, Medical Oncologist from the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre, is joined by Dr Fiona Hegi-Johnson, Radiation Oncologist, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Victoria, and Dr Dasantha Jayamanne, Radiation Oncologist, Genesis Care and Royal Northshore Hospital in NSW to discuss the management of brain metastases in NSCLC. They discuss the current data, the role of stereotactic radiation therapy (SRS, SABR, SBRT) and molecular drivers of ALK and EGFR in the management of these patients. Complex care is also discussed, as are intricacies and clinical considerations behind choosing and implementing care in NSCLC patients with brain metastases.