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VIDEO: Gefitinib may ‘change the paradigm’ to treat lung cancer
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CHICAGO — Lecia V. Sequist, MD, MPH, the Mary B. Saltonstall Endowed Chair in Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, discusses the results of a phase 3 trial that demonstrated gefitinib prolonged DFS compared with standard-of-care chemotherapy in patients with EGFR–positive stage II or IIIa non–small cell lung cancer.
“I think this could really change our paradigm in thinking about how we treat early stage targeted therapy patients,” she told HemOnc Today. “Most of the developments that have come so far in this space have been for patients who already have stage IV disease, but this would be the first evidence showing that targeted therapy has a role in patients who have surgery.”
However, Sequist acknowledges that there are some concerns surrounding immunotherapies.
“When it comes to the excitement of immune therapy, those patients with gene-driven cancers ... don’t do as well with immune therapy,” she said. “I think the excitement about immune therapy is palpable, [and] deserved, but it doesn’t apply to all patients.”
Reference:
Shaw AT, et al. Abstract LBA9008. Presented at: ASCO Annual Meeting; June 2-6, 2017; Chicago.
Wu Y-L, et al. Abstract 8500. Scheduled for presentation at: ASCO Annual Meeting; June 2-6, 2017; Chicago.
Disclosures: Sequist reports serving as a consultant for Ariad, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, Merrimack and Novartis.