Tina Cascone, MD, PhD

Tina Cascone, MD, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Articles

Closing Perspectives: Unmet Needs, Emerging Advances, and the Future of Early-Stage NSCLC Treatment

August 12th 2025

Panelists discuss how future advances will focus on biomarker-driven personalized approaches, platform trials to increase pathologic complete response rates, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-guided therapy escalation and de-escalation, and the critical importance of comprehensive molecular testing in the neoadjuvant setting.

Dr Cascone on Perioperative Nivolumab in Resectable NSCLC

August 5th 2025

Tina Cascone, MD, PhD, discusses of perioperative nivolumab vs placebo in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer.

PACIFIC-R 5-Year Follow-Up: Real-World Outcomes and Implications for Unresectable NSCLC Treatment

August 5th 2025

Panelists discuss how the PACIFIC-R real-world data demonstrates excellent long-term outcomes with a median survival of 60 months, validating the durvalumab consolidation approach while addressing management strategies for patients who progress on or after immunotherapy.

Surgical Attrition in Resectable NSCLC: Risk Factors, Patient Communication, and Strategies to Optimize Continuity of Care

August 5th 2025

Panelists discuss how neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy maintains acceptable surgical safety profiles with mortality rates under 4% and how technical complexity primarily stems from hilar lymph node involvement rather than the systemic therapy itself, requiring experienced surgeons to handle these cases.

Clinical Utility of ctDNA in Guiding Perioperative Treatment Decisions in Early-Stage NSCLC

July 29th 2025

Panelists discuss how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) serves as a promising biomarker for identifying patients at higher risk who may benefit from therapy escalation, though they acknowledge the current lack of prospective data on how to act therapeutically on positive ctDNA results.

Optimizing Adjuvant Therapy Decisions in Resectable NSCLC: Integrating Pathologic Response, PD-L1, and Nodal Status

July 29th 2025

Panelists discuss how treatment decisions should integrate multiple factors, including pathologic complete response (pCR), PD-L1 status, and nodal involvement, with particular emphasis on continuing adjuvant therapy for N2 disease and non-PCR patients despite the complexity of using residual viable tumor as a decision-making tool.

FDA Green-Lights Subcutaneous Nivolumab: What It Means for Early-Stage NSCLC Care

July 22nd 2025

Panelists discuss how subcutaneous (SQ) nivolumab administration offers patient convenience and potential logistical advantages, particularly in the maintenance setting, though they acknowledge limited current adoption and need for more biological data on efficacy differences.

MDT Management of Borderline Resectable Early-Stage NSCLC and Delayed Surgery After Neoadjuvant IO

July 22nd 2025

Panelists discuss how borderline resectable patients can be made resectable through neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy when surgeons have clear, objective goals for what they aim to achieve rather than vague hopes to make surgery “less scary.”

Expert Perspectives in Challenging Situations: Progression After Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy

July 15th 2025

Panelists discuss how to manage patients who cannot proceed to surgery after neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy by pivoting to definitive concurrent chemoradiation with reduced-dose chemotherapy, while emphasizing the need to distinguish true progression from inflammatory changes.

ASCO 2025 Real-World Data on Neoadjuvant Therapy in Stage II to III NSCLC: Surgical Outcomes and Clinical Implications

July 15th 2025

Panelists discuss how real-world data from the Flatiron Health database revealed that surgical completion rates after neoadjuvant therapy are lower in community practice (65%) compared with clinical trials, particularly for patients with poor performance status or more advanced stage disease.

Surgical Perspectives: Who Are the Best Candidates for Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy?

July 8th 2025

Panelists discuss how surgeons evaluate candidates for neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy by emphasizing that all patients with stage II and III disease should be considered regardless of PD-L1 or mutation status, while highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in treatment decisions.

CheckMate 77T: Updated Survival and Biomarker Insights Shaping Early-Stage NSCLC Care

July 8th 2025

Panelists discuss how the CheckMate 77T perioperative trial updates showed that even patients receiving fewer than 4 cycles of neoadjuvant therapy still benefited, and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) clearance serves as an independent biomarker for predicting outcomes regardless of pathologic response status.

CheckMate 816 at ASCO 2025: OS Update and Impact on Early-Stage NSCLC Care

June 27th 2025

Panelists discuss how the CheckMate 816 overall survival data presented at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting demonstrated a significant survival benefit with neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy, particularly in patients with higher PD-L1 expression and those achieving pathologic complete responses (pCRs).

Resectable Early-Stage NSCLC: How the Standard of Care Is Evolving

June 27th 2025

Panelists discuss how the standard of care for resectable early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has evolved from adjuvant chemotherapy alone to neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy and perioperative approaches that combine preoperative treatment with continued immunotherapy after surgery.

Dr Cascone on Evaluating Neoadjuvant Durvalumab-Based Regimens in Resectable NSCLC

February 6th 2025

Tina Cascone, MD, PhD, discusses the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant durvalumab plus novel agents or chemotherapy in resectable NSCLC.

Practice Pearls for Community Oncologists Treating Early-Stage NSCLC

August 3rd 2023

A panel of experts share unmet needs and clinical practice pearls for community oncologists regarding the treatment of patients with early-stage NSCLC.

Treatment for Patients Unsuitable for or Refractory to Consolidation Durvalumab

August 3rd 2023

Tina Cascone, MD, Ben Levy, MD, and Sandip Patel, MD, offer insights into the treatment approach in patients with unresectable early-stage NSCLC who are unsuitable for consolidation durvalumab or who progress on consolidation durvalumab.

Consolidation Immunotherapy in Unresectable Early NSCLC: Novel Approaches

July 28th 2023

Sandip Patel, MD, shares his expert perspectives on novel combination consolidation immunotherapy regimens that are under evaluation in unresectable early-stage NSCLC.

Consolidation Immunotherapy in Unresectable Early NSCLC: PACIFIC Study

July 20th 2023

Ben Levy, MD, reviews the 5-year update and clinical implications of the PACIFIC study which evaluated consolidation immunotherapy in unresectable early-stage NSCLC.

Treatment Strategy in Patients with Unresectable Stage I-III NSCLC

July 20th 2023

Expert panelists discuss the characterization of patients with unresectable, early-stage NSCLC and what their standard treatment approach is for this patient population.