- Adjuvant chemotherapy is prescribed to people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after the surgical removal of the tumor to prevent disease recurrence, but these patients are still at a high risk of relapse and death.
- NSCLC patients with a mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene are at a greater risk of cancer recurrence after surgical removal of the tumor than those with the wild-type EGFR gene.
- Although drugs that inhibit EGFR activity are effective in preventing recurrence in NSCLC patients after tumor resection, these benefits are often short-lived.
- A phase 3 randomized clinical trial now shows that the use of osimertinib, a next-generation drug that inhibits EGFR, as adjuvant chemotherapy after tumor removal in NSCLC patients with EGFR mutations produced a greater increase in both overall and disease-free survival than placebo.
Adjuvant chemotherapy is less effective in people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene than those with the wild-type version of the gene.
Researchers now report that the use of EGFR inhibitors can improve survival in these patients, but the emergence of resistance to these targeted treatments poses a challenge.
A recent phase 3 randomized clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that adjuvant treatment with osimertinib, a next-generation EGFR inhibitor, improved 5-year overall survival in early-stage NSCLC with an EGFR mutation after complete surgical removal of the tumor.
Their findings were presented at the 2023 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
“The study demonstrated that adjuvant osimertinib, a third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI), notably improves overall survival and reduces the risk of disease recurrence or death in patients with completely resected, early-stage, EGFR-mutated NSCLC,” said Dr. Wael Harb, a hematologist and…
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