Facilitating a Global LC Dialogue IN the Group Room
Listen to Selma Schimmel of the Group Room ® Radio as she facilitated a global Lung Cancer dialogue with Bonnie J. Addario, Giorgio Scagliotti, MD, University of Turino, and Ronald B. Natale, MD, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center—a live broadcast from the IASLC 13th World Lung Conference in San Francisco, California. The broadcast included discussions on the stigma of Lung Cancer, the alarming increase in Lung Cancer with people who never smoked, unique mutations that may be responsible, molecular and bio-targeted drugs; facing the problem of Lung Cancer with past limited funding for research, and overcoming historical limitations with important and evolving initiatives including late-stage tissue banking and Community Hospital tissue collection through the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Insitute (ALCMI).
The collection of these tissue specimens is “not only important, it’s critical,” said Scagliotti. “Because as I said before…if we will be able to access tissue banks—and the tissue banks available are really few at the moment, and they are mainly academically-based. The possibility to have a network in which the investigators, the clinical and pre-clinical investigators can rapidly exchange information, and they can easily and rapidly set up clinical studies and the tissue availablity, obviously with some guided-procedures, is available for everyone, it will probably speed up the timing of the research…” Scagliotti continues, “You can make any tissue bank you want…but if they will be available to allow researchers to combine drugs from different companies, probably this will speed up…improve the results in the field of Lung Cancer.”
“We have a listener, let’s say, right now, who’s about to have surgery, can that patient, today, say to their doctor, ‘Please do not dispose of my tissue, I would like that tissue to be sent for further analysis? I’d like to contribute my tissue to a tissue bank. What can we do to empower the patient to begin to move the process forward?’” asked Schimmel.
“I think the one difference here that we’re working for…” said Addario, in response to the legal nightmares Lung Cancer patients face over biopsies and insurance companies’ refusal to cover some procedures, “is we now have a reason for that late-stage patient to now have the biopsy…and that didn’t exist a year ago. The reason we have—for the patient to have the biopsy—is the study of their genomics,” said Addario.
“…going forward we may actually be able to develop medicines that target these mutated proteins in cancer cells, specifically, and that do not bind to normal proteins and that will be completely non-toxic. Now, we’re not there yet, but clearly there’s a pathway to be able to go in that direction for future drug development but it gets back to what both Bonnie and Giorgio were taking about,” explained Natale. “The important need to continue to identify these genetic abnormalities so that we can develop medicines that target them specifically.”
Scagliotti said, “I believe ten years from now, we will be able to do a show like this one, and we will be able to tell our patients that there are a lot of molecular abnormalities and we will probably be able to have a huge number of agents targeting lung abnormalities in an efficient way.” And in another reference, during this interview, to one of the Addario projects at UCSF which Scagliotti was honored to review during the WCLC, he said, “If all the advocacy groups will be highly committed and involved in this type of research, this will be of benefit for everyone.”
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Vital Options International is a not-for-profit cancer communications, support, and advocacy organization with a mission, to facilitate a global cancer dialogue.
Founded in 1983 by Selma Schimmel when she was diagnosed at 28 with breast cancer, Vital Options was the first psychosocial and advocacy organization for young adults with cancer. In 1996 with the launch of The Group Room® cancer talk radio show, Vital Options evolved into a cancer communications organization for people of all ages. Vital Options is noted for its pioneering and innovative approaches in using cutting edge technology to advocate and communicate about cancer through a variety of audio and video formats. Additional projects include The CancerNewsMinute®, CancerTalk(SM), CancerTours™, The Professor & The Survivor®, Advocacy in Action®, and National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week®.
In 2000, Vital Options became an international organization and today works with the patient advocacy and professional oncology community throughout the United States and Europe. Its programs enable patients and their loved ones to interact directly with leading worldwide oncology opinion leaders regarding the latest advances in cancer treatment, research, advocacy, and public policy issues. All Vital Options services are offered without charge. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Vital Options International European base is located in France at the American Hospital of Paris.
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info@vitaloptions.org
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