Why a Targeted Therapy Is Better Than Immunotherapy For Some Patients With Inoperable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer [Video]

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation, tends not to respond well to immunotherapy treatments, including durvalumab. However, Yale Cancer Center (YCC) researchers recently reported in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology that the targeted therapy osimertinib, when administered after chemotherapy and radiation, is associated with significantly improved progression-free survival (living without the cancer worsening).

“Osimertinib is a drug that is actually very specific for the EGFR mutation itself,” said Amin Nassar, MD, co-first author on the study and member of YCC. “It has proven to be very efficacious in the stage IV setting and also, more recently with the ADAURA trial, in the stage III setting. We wanted to find out in the unresectable [tumor not able to be removed by surgery] stage III population, are we going to see similar benefits? And is this targeted therapy actually better than immunotherapy for these specific patients?”

The …