CHICAGO: A pill has been shown to halve the risk of death from a specific type of lung cancer when taken daily, according to clinical trial data released in Chicago at the largest annual conference of cancer specialists.
According to the results presented at an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Taking the drug, marketed under the name Tagrisso, dramatically reduced the risk of death by 51% in patients whose tumors were surgically removed.
According to AL Jazeera, Lung cancer is a form of the disease that causes deaths, with approximately 1.8 million fatalities every year worldwide.
The treatment developed by the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca targets a particular type of lung cancer in patients suffering from so-called non-small cell cancer, the most common type, and showing a specific type of mutation.
These mutations, on what is called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), affect 10% to 25% of lung cancer patients in the United States and Europe and 30 to 40% in Asia.
The clinical trial included 680 participants at an early stage of the disease in more than 20 countries. They had to have been operated on first to remove the tumor, then half of the patients took the treatment daily, and the other half the placebo.
51% Reduction in Death Risk
The result showed that taking the tablet resulted in a 51% reduction in the risk of death for treated patients compared with the placebo.
After five years, 88% of patients who took the treatment were still alive, compared with 78% of patients who took the placebo.
These data are “impressive,” said Roy Herbst of Yale University, who presented them in Chicago. The drug supports “prevent cancer from spreading to the brain to the liver to the bones,” he added at a news conference.
He said, About a third of cases of non-small cell cancers can be operated on when detected.
“This is a dramatic and remarkable improvement,” said Dave Fredrickson, executive vice president of oncology at AstraZeneca.
“It is hard for me to convey, I think, how significant this finding is,” said Nathan Pennell of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
“We started entering the personalized therapy era for early-stage patients,” said Pennell, who didn’t take part in the trials, and noted that “we should firmly close the door on one-size-fits-all treatment for people with non-small cell lung cancer.”
According to a press release from AstraZeneca, Osimertinib is already authorized in dozens of countries for several indications and has already been given to some 700,000 people.
Its approval in the United States for early stages in 2020 was based on previous data that showed an improvement in patient disease-free survival, that is, the time a patient lives without a recurrence of cancer.
Herbst said that not all doctors had adopted the treatment, and several were waiting for the overall survival data presented on Sunday.
