Diagnosis & treatment

Taste alterations and aversions can be a common side effect from certain lung cancer chemotherapy drugs. When food does not taste the way you expect it to (or it has a bad taste taste), it can affect your appetite and contribute to weight loss. Luckily, there are tricks you can use to combat taste changes, whether it be lack of taste, metallic taste, or any other type of taste change. In this article, we will review common taste alterations along with some suggested foods to choose to offset those changes.

Comprehensive biomarker testing is the first step for advanced-stage NSCLC patients to secure personalized and specific information about their cancer to guide critical decisions about the treatments that offer the highest potential for long and high-quality lives.

I have a huge soft spot for the annual AACR meeting. Back in my graduate school days, the annual AACR meeting was the largest global gathering of basic cancer researchers. With over 23,000 attendees this year, it still is—except that the meeting has evolved over the years to include more and more clinical research to answer the fundamental question: How can we truly build upon our knowledge of basic science to impact patient care? The 2019 annual meeting takes this question a step forward, as evident from this year’s meeting theme.

When you are navigating a lung cancer diagnosis, nutrition can be an important part of your journey. Eating a well-balanced diet before, during & after treatment, can help you feel better, maintain your strength and speed your recovery.

On March 27, 2019, LUNGevity hosted an Experts Twitter Chat with Tasha Feilke, MS, RD, CSO, an oncology dietician at Savor Health, to discuss important nutrition issues for lung cancer patients. Tasha also shared tips and resources to help make informed choices about nutrition and help you to achieve and maintain good health.

In recent years, immunotherapy, a treatment that enhances the body’s own immune cancer-fighting response, has been shown to be a very promising treatment option. Immunotherapy has proven effective for treating multiple cancer types, including some types of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Among these NSCLC patients, currently about 20% respond to the treatment.

Sometimes it can be difficult to find motivation the to eat healthy. During lung cancer treatment, food may not taste as good as it used to and it can be easy to succumb to comforting and maybe, not so healthy, snacks.  While all food is fine in moderation, unhealthy snacking can affect your energy level.  Since lung cancer treatments can also contribute to fatigue, so it is important to eat healthy to maintain good nutrition and energy levels.

Hydration is one of the most important factors for lung cancer patients. Dehydration can cause you to be lightheaded or dizzy, but also make treatment-related side effects, like nausea, dry mouth, and constipation, much worse.¹ Research has also shown that when cancer patients are fully hydrated, they have fewer complications and better quality of life compared with those who are dehydrated.² However, for cancer patients and caregivers, it can be difficult to know what to drink and how much.

Nikki Martin, Director of Precision Medicine Initiatives at LUNGevity, had a virtual "sit-down" with Erica Schnettler, Medical Science Liaison at OneOme, to discuss pharmacogenomics testing.  Erica has her BS in genetics and PhD in pharmacology and is passionate about using PGx to improve oncology patient health outcomes.

Since the discovery of the first epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation in lung cancer in 2004, targeted therapies and immunotherapies have become a major component of the treatment arsenal for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Biomarkers are features of a cancer that predict how it will respond to certain treatments. They help doctors select the most appropriate treatment for the cancer.

Two examples of biomarkers are:

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer, comprising 85% of all diagnosed cases of lung cancer. Treatment of NSCLC is dependent on the stage of the disease, determined during the lung cancer staging process. In stage III NSCLC, the primary (original) tumor is large and the cancer has spread to lymph nodes in the center of the chest or other lymph nodes that are on the same side as the primary tumor.