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As summer faded and autumn announced its presence, Stockholmers, not unlike their Canadian counterparts, were enjoying the last pleasures of balmy weather while anticipating an early start to what is forecast to be a long, cold winter. A brief glimpse at the geography of the Swedish capital reveals an unlikely location for a city, not to mention the seat of government. It consists of a system of islands, scattered in a mixture of sea and fresh water, all connected by a series of bridges to somehow create a cohesive, urban theme. From a lung cancer perspective, the 16th European CanCer Organization (ECCO)/36th European Society for Molecular Oncology (ESMO) European Cancer Congress, hosted by Stockholm for the second time in 4 years, will not go down in the annals as a meeting that rocked clinical practice in lung cancer to its core. Indeed, at times, the lung cancer program appeared to resemble Stockholm’s own geography, an archipelago of seemingly unrelated trials, topics and presentations. Nevertheless, with some help from Swedish icons, it is possible to string some of these threads together to form cohesive commentary from the lung cancer presentations related to locally advanced Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), metastatic NCSLC, small cell lung cancer (SCLC), key trial data from AVAPErl, ECOG 5508, FLEX and BMS-099, as well as important findings regarding IHC and H scores.

Sponsorship of distribution of the Lung Cancer UPDATE Part 1 supplement to Oncology Exchange’s November 2011 issue is funded by Boehringer Ingelheim Canada Ltd./Ltee.

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