Small-cell lung cancer articles within Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology

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  • Review Article |

    Lineage plasticity is a source of intratumoural heterogeneity and enables tumour adaptation to an adverse tumour microenvironment, eventually leading to therapeutic resistance. The authors of this Review provide an overview of the impact of lineage plasticity on cancer progression and therapy resistance, with a focus on neuroendocrine transformation in lung and prostate tumours, and discuss emerging management strategies and open questions in the field.

    • Álvaro Quintanal-Villalonga
    • , Joseph M. Chan
    •  & Charles M. Rudin

  • Review Article |

    Patients with small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) have historically received chemotherapy, typically with poor survival outcomes. In the past few years, the combination of immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) with chemotherapy has provided a more effective alternative to chemotherapy alone. Nonetheless, durations of survival are often short, and no robust biomarkers of response are available. In this Review, the authors provide a summary of the efficacy and safety of ICIs in patients with SCLC, and also highlight potential novel immunotherapeutic approaches that are currently in the early stages of investigation.

    • Wade T. Iams
    • , Jason Porter
    •  & Leora Horn

  • Review Article |

    For three decades, the treatment of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) has remained essentially unchanged, and patient outcomes remain dismal. In the past 5 years, however, advances in our understanding of the disease, at the molecular level, have resulted in the development of new therapeutic strategies, encompassing immunotherapies and novel molecularly targeted agents. Herein, authors review the breakthroughs that hold the promise to improve SCLC outcomes.

    • Joshua K. Sabari
    • , Benjamin H. Lok
    •  & Charles M. Rudin

  • Year in Review |

    In 2016, the pace of biological insights into small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) was reflected in new treatment approaches that have suggested meaningful clinical benefit to patients. We focus on three highlights of 2016: preclinical studies defining NFIB as a putative driver of metastasis, and two clinical studies; one that assessed the efficacy of an agent targeting the Notch ligand DLL3, and the other that explored T-cell checkpoint-blockade therapies targeting PD-1 and CTLA-4.

    • Charles M. Rudin
    •  & John T. Poirier

  • Review Article |

    Small-cell lung cancer has a poor prognosis and treatment options for this disease are limited. The authors discuss the molecular biology and current clinical management of progressive small-cell lung cancer, and critically evaluate the recent SPEAR trial, in which the use of second-line picoplatin was investigated.

    • William N. William Jr
    •  & Bonnie S. Glisson

  • News & Views |

    Chemotherapy options for patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) are limited. A recent phase III trial assessed the combination of carboplatin and pemetrexed but this regimen produced inferior survival results compared with the standard carboplatin and etoposide regimen. The combination of carboplatin and etoposide remains the standard first-line chemotherapy option for the treatment of patients with extensive-stage SCLC.

    • Janakiraman Subramanian
    •  & Ramaswamy Govindan

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