At the largest annual cancer conference in Chicago, clinical trial results showed that taking a tablet daily halved the chance of dying from a specific form of lung cancer. At an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting on Sunday, the medicine Tagrisso (osimertinib) lowered the chance of mortality by 51% in patients whose tumors were surgically removed. About 1.8 million people die from lung cancer each year.
AstraZeneca’s lung cancer medication targets non-small cell carcinoma, the most frequent kind, in individuals with a specific mutation. In the US, Europe, and Asia, 10–25% of lung cancer patients had EGFR mutations. 680 early-stage illness patients from 20 countries participated in the clinical trial. After surgery to remove the tumor, half of the patients took the medication daily and the other half a placebo. Compared to the placebo, taking the pill reduced mortality risk by 51%. After five years, 88 percent of therapy patients were alive, compared to 78 percent of placebo patients. Yale University’s Roy Herbst described these results as “impressive” in Chicago. “The drug prevents the cancer from spreading to the brain, to the liver, to the bones,” he said during a news conference. He claimed that a third of non-small cell tumors can be operated on. Dave Fredrickson, AstraZeneca’s senior vice president of oncology, told reporters, “This is a pretty dramatic and remarkable improvement.” At the news announcement, Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Nathan Pennell remarked, “It is hard for me to convey, I think, how important this finding is.” “We started entering the personalized therapy era for early-stage patients,” said Pennell, who did not participate in the trials, adding that “we should firmly close the door on one-size-fits-all treatment for people with non-small cell lung cancer.”
Osimertinib has been prescribed to 700,000 patients in dozens of countries for diverse purposes, according to an AstraZeneca news statement. Previous evidence demonstrated an increase in patient disease-free survival, which led to its 2020 US clearance for early stages. Herbst said not all doctors had accepted the therapy, and many were waiting for Sunday’s overall survival figures. Patients should be screened for the EGFR mutation, he said. Otherwise, “we cannot use this new treatment,” he stated. The receptor-targeting drug osimertinib causes extreme tiredness, skin rashes, and diarrhea.
