2023-06-05 14:19:54
June 05, 2023
Three years after the first promising results, Tagrisso (osimertinib) from AstraZeneca confirms its effectiveness in certain forms of lung cancer.
As in 2020, the announcement was made at the annual meeting of Asco, the American Society for Clinical Oncology, which takes place until June 6 in Chicago. Dr. Roy Herbst, deputy director of the Yale Cancer Center, and the AstraZeneca laboratory, which is known in particular for its anti-Sars-CoV-2 vaccines, have again communicated on the results of targeted therapy with the drug osimertinib, marketed under the name Tagrisso.
If, three years ago, these results showed the significant reduction in the recurrence of non-small cell lung cancer in carriers of the epidermal growth receptor (EGFR) mutation – between 10% and 20% of lung cancers , they concern this time the mortality linked to this cancer. Again, this decreases dramatically, according to AstraZeneca and Dr. Herbst, who led the Adaura phase III clinical trial in which 682 patients from around 20 countries were treated with either osimertinib, or with a placebo.
88% survival at 5 years
These patients, suffering from non-small cell cancer and carriers of the mutation, were treated at an early stage of the disease, after complete resection of the tumor accompanied or not by chemotherapy. They were treated “by Tagrisso 80 mg oral tablets once daily or placebo for three years or until disease recurrence”, AstraZeneca said in a statement. Results: a risk of death reduced by 51% for the osimertinib group compared to the placebo group. In addition, 88% of patients treated with osimertinib were still alive five years later, compared to 78% of patients treated with placebo.
For Dr. Herbst, these results are “impressive” ; for AstraZeneca they are ” unprecedented “. In its press release, the laboratory specifies that the drug has already been used by nearly 700,000 patients worldwide, and that it is authorized in the form of monotherapy in the United States, China, Japan and within the ‘European Union. In France, “The prescription of Tagrisso is hospital and reserved for specialists in oncology or doctors competent in oncology”says the Vidal medical dictionary.
To note : In France, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death, with nearly 46,000 new cases and 33,000 deaths each year. A cancer with a poor prognosis because it is most often discovered at the metastatic stage. The 5-year survival is then estimated at less than 10%.
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