Addressing Unmet Needs to Precision Medicine in EGFR Exon 20-Positive NSCLC
Joshua K. Sabari, MD, discusses the need for EGFR inhibitors designed specifically to treat patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer and an exon 20 insertion.
Joshua K. Sabari, MD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, discusses the need for EGFR inhibitors designed specifically to treat patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and an exon 20 insertion.
The standard of care for patients with EGFR-mutant disease is chemotherapy combination therapy which has been shown to achieve a median survival of about 7 months. According to Sabari, the survival rate reveals a need for more effective treatment overall.
The landscape for those with an exon 20 insertion is less populated with effective agents, says Sabari. These patients do not respond to treatment with traditional tyrosine kinase inhibitors like those with exon 19 and 21 insertions tend to respond. More exon 20-specific inhibitor are needed in the space. Further, there is a need for therapies with better safety profiles for patients with EGFR-mutant and exon 20 insertion-positive NSCLC.
