New hopes for a cure for lung cancer come from the congress of American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) underway in Chicago (United States). The results of two clinical studies by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca were presented: the first (Laura) shows the effectiveness of a targeted therapy against non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The second (Adriatic) is that of an immunotherapy against small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
In particular, in the Laura study (also published in the New England Journal of Medicine) the osimertinib molecule was shown to reduce the risk of disease progression or death by 84% compared to placebo. In the Adriatic study of durvalumab, the risk of mortality was reduced by 27%.
Osimertinib therapy has been tested in over 145 centers in more than 15 countries (in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia) in 216 patients with unresectable stage III Nsclc tumor and with the mutation of the Egfr gene epidermal growth factor). In these patients the drug (which is an Egfr inhibitor), used after chemo-radiotherapy, allowed a survival free from disease progression of 39.1 months, compared to 5.6 in patients treated with placebo.
The durvalumab trial took place in 19 countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia on 730 patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (Ls-Sclc) not progressing after concurrent chemoradiotherapy. In this case the immunotherapy recorded a median overall survival of 55.9 months compared to 33.4 months for the placebo: 57% of patients are alive at three years compared to 48% of the placebo group.
“It has been over 40 years since we have seen changes in the standard of systemic therapy for limited-stage small cell lung cancer” commented Filippo de Marinis, director of the Division of Thoracic Oncology of the European Institute of Oncology (Ieo) in Milan , in the same note as AstraZeneca. “Based on these data – he adds – osimertinib should become the new standard of care for these patients.”
«We will be able to offer – observes Sara Ramella, director of Oncology Radiotherapy at the Campus Biomedico University Polyclinic Foundation of Rome – to patients in a locally advanced stage a targeted treatment in a setting with curative intent, capable of optimizing the effectiveness of chemo-radiotherapy» .
Finally, Silvia Novello, head of Medical Oncology at the San Luigi Gonzaga hospital in Orbassano (Turin), adds that «small cell lung cancer has so far received less attention than other neoplasms, also due to the social stigma, attributable to the history of smoking in the majority of patients”.
Every year, in Italy, there are approximately 44 thousand new cases of lung cancer and 80-85% of them are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The Egfr gene mutation is present in approximately 20% of cases.
Small cell lung cancer (small cell lung cancer) affects over 6 thousand people a year in Italy, equal to 15% of the total new diagnoses of lung cancer.
