Lung Cancer

Merck announced positive data regarding 2 studies, one examining pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy and another in combination with quavonlimab in combination to treat advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

This study found that single dose-per-cycle plinabulin has a similar neutropenia protection benefit as pegfilgrastim among adult patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Significantly more patients treated with nivolumab (Opdivo) plus chemotherapy before surgery demonstrated no evidence of cancer cells in their resected tissue in the trial compared to those treated with chemotherapy alone.

The study is evaluating sotorasib in 126 patients with KRAS G12C-mutant advanced non-small cell lung cancer who had failed a median of 2 prior lines of anti-cancer therapies.

A study found that the historically higher lung cancer incidence rates for young Blacks compared to Whites in the United States disappeared for men and reversed for women.

A pooled analysis of 3 randomized controlled trials found that pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy demonstrated response and survival improvements with a manageable safety in comparison with chemotherapy alone in PD-L1‒negative advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

The agency approved the first and only immunotherapy treatment as a first-line therapy for adult patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma.

The findings from this global, open-label, randomized trial supported the FDA approval of atezolizumab for patients with non-small cell lung cancer with high PD-L1 expression, regardless of histologic type, in May.

Post-operative radiotherapy was associated with a nonstatistically significant increase in disease-free survival in patients with completely resected stage IIIAN2 non-small cell lung cancer and therefore cannot be recommended as a standard of care.

Sotorasib showed promising antitumor activity in patients with non-small cell lung cancer that harbor the KRAS p.G12C mutation.

Cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) monotherapy led to a significant improvement in overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with PD-L1 expression on at least 50% of their tumor cells.

Based on these data, researchers indicated that adjuvant osimertinib would be an effective and practice-changing treatment in this setting.

Apatinib in combination with gefitinib in the first-line setting demonstrated superior progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

First-line treatment with the third-generation ALK TKI was also associated with higher overall and intracranial response rates in patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer.

Capmatinib (Tabrecta) demonstrated substantial antitumor activity in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with a MET exon 14 skipping mutation, especially in those not treated previously.

The approval was based on results from the phase 1/2 ARROW clinical trial, which demonstrated efficacy for pralsetinib in patients with RET fusion-positive NSCLC with or without prior therapy, and regardless of RET fusion partner or central nervous system involvement.

The model was found to be superior to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria at identifying African American ever-smokers for lung cancer screening.

Results from this trial observed in patients with RET-altered lung and thyroid cancers also led to the approval of selpercatinib by the FDA in May for this indication.

The new drug application was based on results from the pivotal ongoing, single-arm, phase 2 VISION study evaluating tepotinib monotherapy in patients with advanced NSCLC with METex14 skipping alterations.

The FDA approved a generic form of pemetrexed for injection as a single-agent in patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer that has not progressed after 4 cycles of first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.

Early interim data from the registrational phase 2 TRIDENT-1 study of repotrectinib was reported by Turning Point Therapeutics, as well as regulatory feedback from the FDA regarding the TRIDENT-1 trial design.

These findings suggest that the current lung cancer screening guidelines undercount African Americans and should therefore be modified to avoid worsening the observed disparities between white and African American ever-smokers in lung cancer outcomes.

If approved, durvalumab could be administered intravenously every 4 weeks at a fixed dose of 1500 mg in unresectable stage III NSCLC after chemoradiation therapy and in previously treated advanced bladder cancer.

The FDA granted priority review to the new drug application for trilaciclib for patients with small cell lung cancer being treated with chemotherapy.

The GioTag study demonstrated that sequential afatinib and osimertinib improved overall survival among patients from the US with epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer and a T790M resistance mutation.