Dr. Herbst on the Next Generation of Lung Cancer Trials

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, professor, Yale Cancer Center, chief of medical oncology, Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, discusses next generation lung cancer trials.

The next generation of lung cancer trials will try to match new biomarkers with new therapeutic agents.

The BATTLE trials, which began in 2005, had all patients freshly biopsied and randomized to 1 of 4 arms of therapy. Researchers began BATTLE-1 with hypotheses regarding biomarkers and outcomes and analyzed data in real time. This trial identified relationships between markers and drugs, including the correlation between VEGFR2 and activity of angiogenesis inhibitors.