Pemetrexed

Healio spoke with Karen L. Reckamp, MD, professor in medicine and director of the division of medical oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, about key studies in lung cancer from ASCO Annual Meeting.

The addition of sintilimab to pemetrexed and platinum chemotherapy conferred a significant PFS benefit for a subset of patients with nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer, according to results of an interim analysis of the ORIENT-11 study.

First-line treatment with carboplatin plus pemetrexed followed by maintenance pemetrexed appeared noninferior to docetaxel monotherapy in extending OS among older patients with advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer, according to results of a randomized phase 3 trial published in JAMA Oncology.

First-line pembrolizumab in combination with pemetrexed and platinum-based chemotherapy substantially extended PFS and OS among patients with metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer, according to an updated analysis of the randomized phase 3 KEYNOTE-189 study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The addition of pemetrexed and carboplatin chemotherapy to gefitinib significantly extended PFS and OS for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and EGFR-sensitizing mutations, according to results of a randomized phase 3 study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Last month, I mentioned my favorite new oxymoron — “Environmental Protection Agency” — and am concerned you might have missed it if you were on vacation ... so I raise the topic again.