European Society for Medical Oncology, ELCC 2015 European Lung Cancer Conference

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to share the peer-reviewed highlights of the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2015, held in Geneva, Switzerland, from April 15 to 18, 2015.

MD Conference Express® provides timely, peer-reviewed highlights of high-impact presentations from the live conference, long before they are published in the academic literature, and is a trusted education resource. The articles selected for this issue underwent a rigorous 5-step peer-review process to ensure their accuracy and provide a reliable interim information source prior to the research being vetted by the standard journal peer-review process.

The articles in this issue of MD Conference Express represent the most compelling topics of relevance to a broad array of practitioners and have the potential to influence clinical practice.

Among the clinical trial highlights presented at ELCC is the ASSESS study, which found that circulating tumor DNA may be feasible and suitable to identify EGFR mutations in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A new, age-based subset analysis from the SQUIRE trial highlighted the potential limitations of adding necitumumab to first-line chemotherapy with cisplatin plus gemcitabine in patients over the age of 70 years. Finally, while we await randomized data comparing surgical resection to stereotactic body radiation therapy in early-stage NSCLC, Rossi and colleagues provide a retrospective analysis comparing these 2 treatment modalities in patients with potentially resectable disease.

The selected update articles include a review of mesothelioma, strategies to improve outcomes in stage III NSCLC, and the role of immunotherapy for lung cancer. New treatment targets for advanced NSCLC are the subject of the feature article.

We hope that you find the articles and practical perspectives that are contained in the pages of this issue of MD Conference Express helpful in integrating this new information into your clinical practice. For more information, please visit www.mdce.sagepub.com.

David M. Jackman, MD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Assistant Professor
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, USA