Lung Cancer Surveillance After Definitive Curative-Intent Therapy Guideline ASCO Guidelines

An interview with Dr. Benjamin Levy from Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital on “Lung Surveillance After Definitive Curative-Intent Therapy: ASCO Guideline.” This guideline provides recommendations to clinicians on radiographic imaging and biomarker surveillance strategies after definitive curative-intent therapy in patients with stage I-III non–small-cell lung cancer and small-cell lung cancer. Read the full guideline at www.asco.org/thoracic-cancer-guidelines
 
Transcript
Hi. My name is Clifford Hudis, and I am the CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, as well as the host of the ASCO in Action podcast. About twice a month, I interview thought leaders in health care and experts in oncology, and we provide analysis and commentary on a wide range of cancer policy and practice issues. You can find the ASCO in Action podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you are listening to this show, and you can find all nine of ASCO's podcasts which cover a wide range of educational and scientific content, and offer enriching insight into the world of cancer care at podcast.asco.org.
 
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care, and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.
 
Hello and welcome to the ASCO Guidelines podcast series, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of nine programs covering a range of educational and scientific content, and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care. You can find all the shows, including this one, at podcast.asco.org. My name is Brittany Harvey, and today I'm interviewing Dr. Benjamin Levy from Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital, author on "Lung Surveillance After Definitive Curative Intent Therapy ASCO Guideline." Thank you for being here, Dr. Levy.
 
Thanks for having me.
 
So first, can you give us a general overview of what this guideline covers?
 
Yeah, I think that the general broad stroke intent of this consensus paper was to provide evidence-based guidelines and recommendations for practicing clinicians on what the optimal radiographic imaging and biomarker surveillance strategy should be for patients who received definitive curative intent therapy, and specifically for patients with stage I through III non-small-cell lung cancer, or patients who have received curative intent therapy for a limited-stage small-cell lung cancer.
 
And importantly, this expert panel comprised a multidisciplinary team, and this included not only medical oncologists, but surgical oncologists, pulmonologists, radiologists, a general internist, a patient representative. So we had, I think, the relevant stakeholders to make the best recommendations we could based on the evidence. And we really framed our recommendations by answering five questions, and I think we can get to the five questions at a later time during this cast, but we try to answer these five questions in a systematic way. And really looked at the type-- was an evidence-based or was it informal consensus? What was the evidence quality? Was it low, was it intermediate, or was it high? And then finally, the strength of the recommendation.
 
And importantly, we tried to answer these questions based on the evidence. We did a literature search, which culminated in a systematic review of more than-- close to 1,200 studies of which 14 studies were identified, and these 14 studies included meta-analysis, randomized control trials, case-controlled trials, and retrospective studies, and really by doing this, we wanted to come up with important guidelines. I think these guidelines are coming on the heels of a lot of confus