The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer today announces an open comment period for the "IASLC Multidisciplinary Recommendations for Pathologic Assessment of Lung Cancer Resection Specimens Following Neoadjuvant Therapy" paper. The paper has been made available here to provide an opportunity for public review of new draft recommendations. The open comment period runs from October 14 to November 7, 2019.
With the recent growing number of clinical trials for non-small cell lung cancer with neoadjuvant therapy, there is a great need for standardization of sample processing since it has consistently been shown that major pathological response (MPR) is an important prognostic predictor. The aim of this paper is to outline comprehensive guidelines for the treatment of specimens of lung cancer resection and to define complete pathological response (pCR) including major pathological response (MPR) and partial pathological response (pCR) after neoadjuvant therapy.
"Currently there is no established guidance on how to process and evaluate resected lung cancer specimens following neoadjuvant therapy in the setting of clinical trials and clinical practice," said Giorgio Scagliotti, past president of the IASLC and co-author of the paper. "There is also a lack of precise definitions on the degree of pathologic response, including MPR or pCR."
The IASLC is striving to gather such data from existing and future clinical trials. Such guidelines are intended as guidance for clinical trials, although it is suggested that they can be seen as suggestions for good clinical practice outside of clinical trials in order to improve the reliability of treatment response pathological assessment.
Together with a global multidisciplinary group of experts in medical oncology, thoracic surgery and radiology, the IASLC Pathology Committee established these guidelines.
"We are crossing an exciting period of preclinical and clinical research around thoracic oncology. Targeted therapies and immunotherapy have greatly improved survival expectations in advanced disease and we believe they can equally generate benefit in the systemic therapy of earlier stages of the disease," said Scagliotti. "Our initiative aims to use rigorous experimental conditions to analyze tissue specimens, collected in the context of already performed or ongoing neoadjuvant studies with targeted therapies and immunotherapy, to generate a diagnostic algorithm to be used in all subsequent studies in order to accelerate the scientific information about the clinical benefit produced by the neoadjuvant approach."
About the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated solely to the study of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. Founded in 1974, the association’s membership includes more than 7,500 lung cancer specialists across all disciplines in over 100 countries, forming a global network working together to conquer lung and thoracic cancers worldwide. The association also publishes the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the primary educational and informational publication for topics relevant to the prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment of all thoracic malignancies. Visit http://www.iaslc.org for more information and follow us on Twitter @IASLC.