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Medical cancer breakthrough
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have reported that a combination of pre-surgical immunotherapy and chemotherapy with post-surgical immunotherapy has shown improved event-free survival (EFS) and pathologic complete response (pCR) rates for patients with operable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
These results were obtained from a Phase III trial and were first presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in 2023. The findings have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The AEGEAN trial assessed the effectiveness of administering durvalumab before and after surgery, referred to as perioperative therapy. Patients enrolled in the trial were randomly assigned to receive either neoadjuvant durvalumab and platinum-based chemotherapy before surgery, followed by adjuvant durvalumab after surgery, or neoadjuvant placebo and chemotherapy before surgery, followed by adjuvant placebo after surgery.
AEGEAN is the first Phase III clinical trial to evaluate perioperative immunotherapy in patients with resectable NSCLC, and the results demonstrate the benefits of both neoadjuvant and adjuvant immunotherapy for these patients, adding to the growing body of evidence.
“Our goal is to increase cures for lung cancer. Throughout decades of research with adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, we only succeeded in increasing cures by around 5%,” said principal investigator John Heymach, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Thoracic/Head & Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson.
“This one study alone has the potential to increase that percentage significantly, and we look forward to many more improvements going forward.”
“Durvalumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor targeting PD-L1, has previously been approved for treating specific patients with biliary tract cancer, liver cancer, small cell lung cancer and NSCLC,” according to official notes.
The notes continued and revealed the following: “Currently, durvalumab is used for treating patients with locally advanced, unresectable NSCLC following definitive chemoradiotherapy and for patients with metastatic NSCLC in combination with tremelimumab and platinum-based chemotherapy.”
