LUNGevity welcomes Nichelle Stigger to the Board of DirectorsNichelle Stigger, lung cancer survivor and advocate, has joined LUNGevity’s Board of Directors. Nichelle’s personal understanding of the challenges that lung cancer patients face will be an invaluable asset to our Board of Directors, and her passion as an advocate for women of color will amplify the Foundation’s work of changing outcomes for all people with lung cancer. We are excited that Nichelle will be lending her voice to our organization. Learn more about our newest board member in the press release and the recent interview we conducted with her. Two new publications for LUNGevity’s work in clinical trial reformAlong with addressing COVID-19-related needs of our community, LUNGevity has been proceeding with ongoing workstreams related to streamlining lung cancer clinical trials and making them more patient-centric and accessible. Two manuscripts were recently published that reflect the culmination of months of work by multi-stakeholder groups. The first paper, published in the journal Clinical Lung Cancer, provides a set of recommendations and associated medical justifications for limiting the use of 14 generally outdated or unnecessary exclusion criteria that prevent scores of lung cancer patients from accessing clinical studies for promising new therapies. These recommendations are the latest in a series of efforts LUNGevity has catalyzed aimed at expanding opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials. Our next steps for this work include broad dissemination of the paper and working with our industry colleagues to encourage implementation of these recommendations. The second paper, published in the journal Therapeutic Innovation and Regulatory Science, addresses the ongoing problem of uninformative safety reporting within lung cancer clinical studies. There has been significant discussion about the problem of excessive safety reporting and the burdens it places on investigators and regulators, which can end up obscuring true safety signals within clinical trials. To tackle this complex problem, the LUNGevity working group aimed its efforts at developing a list of events that are generally “anticipated” to occur among patients with lung cancer and that would therefore not need to be reported individually. We hope that having access to this illustrative list of lung cancer anticipated events will assist trial sponsors in limiting the individual safety reports they send to investigators and the FDA. Our next steps include broad dissemination of this paper and engaging directly with safety leads within the industry colleagues who work with us on the Scientific and Clinical Roundtable Initiative. Weekly Friday virtual meetups for ILCSC registrantsWhile we can’t physically be together at the International Lung Cancer Survivorship Conference (ILCSC) at this time, we can still connect during our Friday Zoom meetups – either midday or early evening. We have multiple meetups running simultaneously. Join once or multiple times to meet new people and see old friends. Meetups are made up of groups of ten people who have registered for the conference and are interested in connecting. If you are interested in joining the next meetup, make sure you are registered for ILCSC and be on the lookout for weekly signup emails. LUNGevity events go virtual!The COVID-19 outbreak and public health crisis has led us to postpone many of our events, including our spring Breathe Deep walks and our Celebration of Hope Gala, which will now be held on September 30, 2020, in Washington, DC. However, we are excited to announce a new way to come together as a community to raise funds and spread awareness and hope about lung cancer this spring. We will be hosting our first-ever Breathe Deep TOGETHER, a virtual, community-wide awareness event, on Saturday, May 30. Join us for inspiring speakers, guided yoga, and more! Further details will be shared as soon as they are available. Save the date! We are also pleased to announce the first-ever LUNGevity’s Got Talent. This event will include live, virtual performances, which you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. Save the date for Thursday, June 18, 2020, and stay tuned for more details. We have more exciting events in the works. Stay tuned, stay committed, and stay positive! Resource Highlight: COVID-19 and Lung Cancer websiteLUNGevity has launched a new section of our website dedicated to COVID-19 and lung cancer. The site features reliable updates and frequently asked questions about the virus, interviews with healthcare experts about COVID-19 specifically for lung cancer patients, and resources for self-care, financial assistance, and more. Visit our COVID-19 and Lung Cancer website, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the latest expert news and videos. All of our support services are up and running to help you navigate this challenging time. Visit our website to learn more about our services. |