Lung cancer in people who have never smoked is proving to be quite different from cancer in smokers, which in turn is changing the day-to-day management of lung cancer patients.

During the session Dharma Master Jiantai Advances in Lung Cancer Research Session: Deciphering Lung Cancer in Non-smokers – Dedicated to the Memory of Richard H. Creech, a panel of experts will discuss translational and clinical data that are informing the clinical management of lung cancer in non-smokers. The session will be held on Tuesday, April 9, from 12:30 – 2 p.m. PT in Ballroom 6 A on the upper level of the San Diego Convention Center.

“Our goal in this session is to look into the day-to-day management of lung cancer in non-smokers,” said session chair Tony S. K. Mok, MD, chairman of the Department of Clinical Oncology, and professor of clinical oncology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “This will include early disease detection, resistance to targeted therapy, and application of immunotherapy for this unique disease.”

Elaine Shum, MD, NYU Langone Health Perlmutter Cancer Center, will begin the session by discussing her program on screening for early-stage lung cancer among non-smokers and the pros and cons of doing so.

“It’s well established that smokers should have low-dose CT scan screening. However, there is a lack of data on non-smokers. Apart from CT, is there any other method?” Mok asked.

In the second presentation, Mok will discuss the management of drug resistance to molecular targeted therapy in non-smokers.

“It has taken about 15 years to establish first-line treatment selecting targeted biomarker with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, and we have successfully improved the survival of the patients. But now, after 15 years, we are faced with a lot of resistance problems,” Mok said.

In the third presentation, A. McGarry Houghton, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA, will discuss the development of immunotherapies for never smokers.

“Immunotherapy has become a standard treatment for lung cancer,” Mok said. “However, the tumor microenvironment of the smoker and never smoker are different. So how should you design future immunotherapies targeting the never smoker?”

This will be a timely discussion as the rate of cancer in non-smokers is on the rise globally. Mok expects this session to appeal to any attendee who treats lung cancer or who is participating in research on drug development.

This session is dedicated to the memory of Richard H. Creech, MD, a medical oncologist and a longtime member of the AACR, who died on July 1, 2023, at 83.