Dr. West on ALK-NSCLC Crizotinib Survival Benefit

H. Jack West, MD, medical director of the Thoracic Oncology Program at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle, Washington discusses how crizotinib demonstrated a survival benefit in ALK-non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Dr. West says there is a survival benefit conferred by crizotinib, with the caveat that those patients who tested positive but didn't get NSCLC may have had some other issue that confounds the matter. Looking at the demographics and various other characteristics of the patient population, it seemed that they were similar. Yet, the patients who got crizotinib did far better than those who had an ALK rearrangement but didn't.