Osimertinib poised to change standard of care for some NSCLC cases

Osimertinib improves PFS in patients with unresectable stage III EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has been treated with chemoradiotherapy and may be a new standard of care for this population, suggests the results of the international phase 3 LAURA trial presented at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting.

“There are currently no approved targeted treatments specifically for unresectable stage III EGFRm NSCLC. With the superior efficacy results along with the robust magnitude of benefit in the LAURA study, osimertinib provides a solution to a large unmet need for this patient population,” said lead study author Dr Suresh S Ramalingam, FASCO, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, US.

The LAURA trial enrolled people with unresectable stage III NSCLC with EGFR mutations without any disease progression during/after definitive platinum-based chemoradiotherapy. People were randomly assigned on a two-to-one basis to receive osimertinib (143 patients) or a placebo (73 patients).

Osimertinib significantly improved PFS compared with placebo. The median PFS was 39 months in the osimertinib group vs six months with the placebo group.

In the osimertinib group, 74 per cent of participants did not have any cancer growth after 12 months and 65 per cent did not have any cancer growth after 24 months. This is compared with 22 per cent and 13 per cent in the placebo group, respectively.

Osimertinib showed a higher objective response rate when compared with placebo (57 vs 33 per cent, respectively).

The rate of new metastases to the brain was lower in the osimertinib arm (8 per cent) when compared with placebo (29 per cent).