ELCC 2017 | Current treatment options for squamous cell lung cancer

David Gandara, MD, from the University of California,Sacramento, CA discusses the current treatment options for squamous cell lung cancer (SCLC), at the annual meeting of the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017, Geneva, Switzerland. Up until recently, the treatment choice for SCLC has been limited but with the development of immunotherapy there has been an improvement in the quality and standard of treatment options. However, relative to adenocarcinomas, there is a lack of PD-L1 expression in SCLC, and current immunotherapy options are tailored to high-expressing tumors only. Other first-line therapies for SCLC include EGFR-monoclonal antibodies such as necitumumab combined successfully with platinum chemotherapy. Second-line therapies include EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as afatinib and erlotinib. New agents and drugs are being developed every day to refine current therapies for SCLC.