If you are a medical professional involved with the management of patients with lung cancer, be sure to attend the 2013 Lung Cancer CME: Updates and Challenges in Lung Cancer Friday, June 21.

This one-day CME accredited educational course will focus on challenging aspects of lung cancer care as well as updates on screening, work-up, diagnosis, staging and treatment. In the following interview, we spoke with Balazs Halmos, MD, Program co-director, to learn about what to expect at this year’s conference.

Q: What type of innovations and discoveries within lung cancer clinical trials and research will be covered at this year’s conference?

Dr. Halmos: This year’s CME will cover a range of topics such as lung cancer screening, detection, and staging. Perhaps most importantly it will discuss the exciting findings of the different conferences and current clinical studies in the field. One of the CME’s highlights will be a presentation on the updates from the recent ASCO conference. The ASCO conference included a number of key presentations, such as the new genetic abnormalities identified in different types of lung cancers that will facilitate personalized treatments for patients as well as remarkable advances in the field of immunotherapy for lung cancer. We are excited to be able to discuss all of this with our attendees.

Q: How have diagnostic procedures such as electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy changed the playing field for the diagnosis and staging of lung cancer? How will this be addressed in the CME?

Dr. Halmos: Recently we have seen major advances in our ability to obtain tissue biopsies from difficult-to-reach areas, which is critical for the appropriate diagnosis and staging of lung cancer. In the past, lymph nodes were evaluated by an invasive surgical procedure.  In this year’s CME, we will cover major advances in the field of bronchoscopy, such as the use of an ultrasound device to help those bronchoscopies to reach lymph nodes in difficult areas like the middle of the chest or in the hilum. This allows us to better assess whether lymph nodes are affected by cancer with minimally invasive techniques, which is key in designing the best treatment plan. We will also review how the exciting novel technique of electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy enables us to sample areas of the lung that were simply unreachable through the use of bronchoscopy in the past. Furthermore, we will discuss how we are able to use tiny samples obtained through these novel techniques sufficiently for the completion of specialized molecular testing to understand the genetic profile to tailor treatments for each patient.  These devices are now available at NYP and we are excited to share our expertise with our attendees at the event.

Q: Will personalized medicine be discussed at Updates and Challenges in Lung Cancer? If so, where will this be addressed?

Dr. Halmos: Personalized medicine will definitely be one of the highlights of the conference. Increased knowledge of the molecular and genetic makeup of lung tumors has given us better understanding why these cancer cells grow and which treatments can best target them, giving our patients the greatest chances of remission. Moreover, while we are better targeting these cancers, we are simultaneously limiting the adverse side effects of therapy as these targeted treatments have fewer systemic effects. While many of the CME lectures will touch on the topic of personalized medicine, we especially look forward to having Dr. Ramaswamy Govindan as one of our keynote speakers. Dr. Govindan has been one of the leaders of genomic medicine in the world and recently published findings of a large national effort that he has led, examining the entire DNA sequence of a number of lung cancers and giving us an accurate roadmap toward advancing personalized medicine for patients with lung cancer. I will also be providing an overview of molecular targeting as a biological therapy for lung cancer.

Q: Why is Updates and Challenges in Lung Cancer a must-attend CME? What makes this course unique as compared to other CME events in its field?

Dr. Halmos: Updates and Challenges in Lung Cancer is unique because it is one of the few CMEs that addresses all aspects of lung cancer with such a strong emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of thoracic oncology.  First, we cover all the major fields involved with lung cancer medicine such as radiology, pulmonary, pathology, thoracic surgery, and medical oncology with expert speakers to address major advances in all the different fields. In addition, we have designed this conference to be centered on key case presentations to highlight the need for multidisciplinary management approaches in the treatment of any stage and type of lung cancer. Between the course’s multidisciplinary nature as well as the focus on case presentations, we hope to create an environment closer to clinicians’ day-to-day practice, focusing on what they’ll see in patient care rather than strictly research advances.

To watch this program live online, register on our Updates and Challenges in Lung Cancer live broadcast site.

For more information, please contact Jessica Scully, Program Coordinator, at 201.346.7007 or jas2134@columbia.edu

Tagged as: cancer, CME, Halmos, lung, thoracic

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