Pharmacological Optimization of Lung Cancer Treatment Webinar: Drug-Drug Interactions, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, and Immunotherapy

Thank you

The first edition of the Lung Cancer Webinar, co-organized by Global DDI Solutions and Academic Medical Education, took place at 19.00 CEST on 22 April 2024.

Participants had the opportunity to register for the special fee of 50.00 EUR and:

• Explore critical interactions between small molecule inhibitors (SMIs) and oral anticoagulants, addressing risks and effective management;
• Delve into TDM guidelines for SMIs, examining their effectiveness and practical recommendations for informed decision-making;
• Uncover the nuances between flat fixed and weight-based dosing of immunotherapy, considering benefits, challenges, and practical implications.

Welcome

We are delighted to announce that the first Pharmacological Optimization of Lung Cancer Treatment Webinar - Drug-Drug Interactions, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, and Immunotherapy took place on 22 April 2024.

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide, with an incidence of 2.2 million cases in 2020, usually diagnosed in people aged 60 and older. Non-small lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer. The first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC consists of small molecule inhibitors (SMIs) and immune/chemotherapy.

With advent of these novel therapies, several pharmacological issues have arisen that need full attention of clinicians, pharmacists and clinical researchers.

First, SMIs are often inhibitors, inducers and substrates of CYP450 isoenzymes and/or membrane transporters, such as CYP3A4 enzyme and P-glycoprotein (P-gp), and therefore at risk for Drug-Drug interactions (DDIs). Lung cancer patients have an increased risk of thrombosis, and the standard treatment are Directly-acting Oral Anti-Coagulants (DOACs). DOACs are substrates of CYP3A4 enzyme and/or P-gp. Coadministration of SMIs and DOACs is a potential risk for DDIs that implies an increased risk of bleeding and mortality, due to changes in DOAC concentration.

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) can be applied to check whether the concentration is still in the therapeutic range or requires a dose adjustment. For new drugs on the market, the effectiveness of TDM is unknown, and practical recommendations for TDM are often missing.

Nowadays, immunotherapy is commonly used in the treatment of lung cancer. Unfortunately, treatment with immunotherapy, e.g. immune checkpoint inhibitors, is related to immune-related adverse events (irAE). Examples of irAE are skin toxicity, endocrinopathies, neurological toxicity and haematological toxicity. When grade 3 or 4 toxicity of immunotherapy occurs in a patient, the discussion is to resume the therapy or use the rechallenge strategy. A patient who has previously developed severe irAE is at risk for redeveloping severe toxicities. Therefore, healthcare professionals are hesitant to retreat, even though patients may derive clinical benefit. Healthcare professionals must choose a treatment option based on consideration between the clinical benefit and treatment-related toxicities for an individual patient. The ESMO guideline provides a step-by-step plan and recommendations for each toxicity, its degree of severity and how to act in the event of an occurrence. The first edition of the Global DDI Solutions Lung Cancer webinar took place on 22 April 2024. This webinar was organized by Global DDI Solutions in collaboration with Academic Medical Education. It was an opportunity for many healthcare professionals, including pulmonologists, medical oncologists, nurse specialists, pharmacists, and clinical pharmacologists, to increase their knowledge about the pharmacological optimization of lung cancer treatment.

The Organizing Committee

General Information