Editors Choice
Lung Cancer in Turkey
Turkey stretches from the Balkans to the Middle East and is among the larger countries in terms of land area and population (Fig. 1). Turkey’s population of approximately 85 million people encompasses a diverse genomic, ethnic, and cultural heritage with roots from several empires and civilizations dating back to the Paleolithic age. According to the GLOBOCAN 20201 registry, lung cancer (LC) comprises 17.6% of all cancer types. It ranks highest in Turkey, with 41,000 new cases in 2020 and an age-adjusted incidence rate of 41.7 and 8.7 per 100,000 for men and women, respectively.Lung Cancer in Rwanda
Rwanda is a landlocked country in East Africa with an estimated population of approximately 12.5 million in 2018, making it the second most densely populated country in Africa.1,2 Rwanda is counted among low-income countries, with a little more than 80% of Rwandans living in rural areas. Women represent approximately a half of the population.3 Figure 1 is the map of Rwanda in relation to its neighboring countries.Antiangiogenesis May Not Be a Universal Booster of EGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors
Since the concept of antiangiogenesis was introduced in oncology, various types of systemic anticancer treatment, from cytotoxic chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy, to immunotherapy, had been attempted to be combined with antiangiogenic agents. At around 2010, cytotoxic chemotherapy and EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) were two pillars of systemic treatments for NSCLC, and the combination of antiangiogenic agents and EGFR TKIs was thus naturally to be explored.Determining Whether YAP1 and POU2F3 Are Antineuroendocrine Factors
Rudin et al.1 reported that SCLCs can be subtyped into four groups (SCLC-A, SCLC-N, SCLC-Y, and SCLC-P) according to four molecules—ASCL1, NEUROD1, POU2F3, and YAP1—based on gene expression data of primary SCLC samples and cell lines. Initially, both YAP1 and POU2F3 were identified as markers of the non-neuroendocrine (non-NE) phenotype of SCLC; however, subsequent studies have gradually revealed that YAP1 and POU2F3 have different significance.EGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Sequencing Revisited: From the Revival of Old Tools to the Integration of New Agents
In this issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Piccirillo et al.1 report the results of the BEVERLY trial, a randomized phase 3 study that reveals the progression-free survival (PFS) benefit of bevacizumab to erlotinib as first-line treatment for Italian patients with metastatic NSCLC with common EGFR mutations. In this large study, after a median follow-up of 36.3 months, median investigator-assessed PFS was 15.4 months with erlotinib plus bevacizumab and 9.6 months with erlotinib alone (hazard ratio = 0.66, 95% confidence interval: 0.47–0.92).
