CME CREDIT INFORMATION

There are 30 presentations, 4 case studies, and 5 Point-Counterpoint sessions between the faculty and audience with both clinical cases and audience questions.  Each of these sessions is approximately 15 minutes in length, and each will permit you to earn 0.25 hours of AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Sessions can be individually reviewed for credit. You can participate in as few or as many as you desire.

For the treatment of some major malignancies, including lung cancer and head & neck cancer, the practice of medicine and patient management is now evolving from what has traditionally been a general approach with standardized therapies, to a more personalized therapeutic approach using therapies specific to patients, their tumors and drugs.

The First Annual Symposium on Personalized Therapies for Lung Cancer and Head & Neck Cancer is a completely new concept in medical education for thoracic malignancies. This comprehensive symposium will help clinicians improve their selection of the most appropriate targeted therapeutics and chemotherapeutics, and also help to identify certain patient sub-populations with thoracic malignancies who may best respond to specific drug therapies. The ability to accomplish these new approaches to treatment is based upon the increasing ability of clinicians to utilize the newest and ever expanding knowledge of the relevant science, biology and genetics to gain competence and improve their performance treating these patients. The desired result of personalized therapies for lung cancer and head & neck cancer is an overall improvement in patient care, through increased drug efficacy and a minimization of treatment-induced toxicities.

This symposium is the second in an ongoing series on personalized therapies for major malignancies, a completely new concept in cancer medical education. The initial symposium of this series, the First Annual Symposium Personalized Therapies for Breast Cancer was held January 19-20, 2008 in Miami, FL, taught by 31 expert faculty, and was highly successful. The total number of participants was 261, far in excess of the projected number and among the highest of any stand-alone symposium, especially for the first annual event. Ninety-one percent of all the participants’ evaluations were very positive. There were 13 pharmaceutical companies providing financial support. In addition, Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has requested that the Oncology Learning Center (OLC) publish the proceedings of the personalized therapies for breast cancer symposium in the NCI journal, Cancer. All of these metrics validate need for the concept of this series of educational symposia on personalized therapies of major malignancies. Moreover, the evaluations and feedback from the 2008 personalized therapies of breast cancer symposium include numerous requests for a similar program on personalizing therapies for thoracic malignancies.

The First Annual Symposium on Personalized Therapies for Lung Cancer and Head & Neck Cancer will begin with a session reviewing the appropriate scientific advancements in the understanding of cancer biology, and the use of molecular biomarkers: both prognostic and predictive factors, to enable a personalized approach to the treatment of patients with lung cancer and cancer of the head & neck. The remaining sessions will review the treatment of lung cancers and head & neck cancers based upon the five areas of drug therapy where there exists the most scientific advances to help clinicians improve drug selection and patient population identification: 1) chemotherapies; 2) anti-EGFR therapies; 3) anti-angiogenic therapies; 4) the use of radiation with drug therapies; and 5) additional targets, pathways and supportive care for personalizing the overall management of patients with thoracic malignancies.

In 2007, approximately 213,000 patients were diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States and another 34,000 were diagnosed with cancer of the head & neck. Lung cancer is by far the deadliest tumor type. Each year more people die from lung cancer than either breast or colorectal cancers. Treatment options for both lung cancer and cancer of the head & neck have been largely determined by tumor histology and stage. However, despite the use of this approach with current therapies, 160,000 patients died last year from lung cancer and 7,550 died from head & neck cancer. Thus, there remains a significant clinical practice gap involving the need to improve the efficacy of treatments for these malignant diseases. As more is learned about the molecular biology of lung cancer and cancer of the head & neck, a personalized approach to treating these tumors should help improve clinical outcome and decrease the mortality rate attributed to these malignancies.

Recently, technologies contributing to the understanding of the molecular biology of cancer have advanced rapidly, resulting in an evolution in cancer treatment from a general, nonselective therapeutic approach, to one that incorporates the biology of the malignancy and the genetics of the individual patient. The role of new technologies in personalized risk assessment and treatment planning for patients with lung cancer and head & neck cancer has helped establish several gaps between physicians’ practices and the emerging science and clinical data from research, and thus, knowledge, competence and performance needs for this educational activity.

The optimal roles of drug therapy as single agents, and also in combination regimens for the treatment of patients with thoracic malignancies continue to be evaluated and improved. Both targeted therapies and chemotherapies remain a vital part of clinical therapeutic options for the treatment of lung cancer and head & neck cancer. Various molecular biomarkers are increasingly being used to help predict whether some patients with lung cancer and head & neck cancer will respond to a specific drug therapy, and which can help assist clinicians in the treatment planning for these patients. Molecular biomarkers including ERCC-1, RR-1, Beta 3 tubulin and others exist to predict patient prognosis as well as response to platinums, taxanes, some anti-metabolites, epothilones and anti-folates.

A protein that has been the target of several anti-cancer therapies is the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which has been shown to mediate tumor cell growth, and may play a role in tumor angiogenesis. Therapies that target EGFR have been evaluated in many clinical trials and are now frequently used in the treatment of patients with lung cancer and head & neck cancer. The results of clinical studies, especially those in which molecular biomarkers are used for personalizing drug therapies, and a discussion of the optimal use of drugs that target the EGFR, warrant ongoing discussion. There is also a need to discuss the role of genomics and proteomics in improving patient selection for drug therapies that target EGFR.

Tumor angiogenesis is another important biological process that is the target of drug therapies for personalized therapies of thoracic malignancies. Currently, anti-angiogenesis clinical therapies with monoclonal antibodies that target the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are used in the treatment of lung cancer and head & neck cancer. Several small molecule drugs that target the VEGF receptor (VEGFR) have also been shown to possess activity against other tyrosine kinases that contribute to tumor growth and proliferation. These small molecule multi-targeted kinase inhibitors are currently being evaluated in the treatment of lung cancer. Thus, there is a need to review the latest clinical trial data and discuss the optimal use of anti-angiogenesis therapies in the treatment of lung cancer with specific molecular biomarkers for personalizing treatment.

There is also a need to discuss the inhibition of newer molecular targets and pathways involved in thoracic malignancies. These include IGFR-1, aurora kinase, mTOR, c-Met and Mek which will help further advance the personalization of lung and head & neck cancer therapies. Inhibition of Cox-2 for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer also warrants a review for its potential role in personalizing therapies for this malignancy. And the need exists to review the area of personalizing supportive care, especially with newer approaches to managing bone metastasis, bone health, nausea and vomiting, and other GI issues including opioid-induced bowel dysfunction, in patients with lung cancer and head & neck cancer.

The Oncology Learning Center designates this educational activity for a maximum of 17 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

All faculty and OLC staff participating in the content, planning or implementation of an educational CME activity are required to disclose to the audience of the educational activity any relevant financial relationships or interests and to assist in the resolution of any conflict of interest that may arise from the relationship(s) or interest(s). It is also the policy of the OLC to require all faculty presenters to make a meaningful disclosure to the audience of their discussions of unlabeled or FDA unapproved drugs, products, tests or devices. This information will be available as part of the educational activity and related material.

The following faculty and OLC staff have reported real or potential relevant conflicts of interest and these conflicts have been resolved, prior to this educational activity through a peer-review process by two medical oncologists who have had no affiliation with this educational activity other than the peer review process.  This is documented on this page immediately following the financial disclosures below.

Sincere appreciation is extended to Genentech BioOncology, OSI Oncology, Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, ImClone Systems Incorporated, sanofi-aventis, Biogen Idec, Poniard Pharmaceuticals, and OSI Pharmaceuticals for their generous support of this educational meeting