Building on the Success of Osimertinib in EGFR-Mutated NSCLC

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, FACP, FASCO, executive director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discusses the background and next steps of the LAURA study (NCT03521154) which evaluated osimertinib (Tagrisso) for the treatment of patients with unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR mutations.

According to findings presented at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, there was a dramatic improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for those taking osimertinib with 39.1 months (95% CI, 31.5-not calculable) vs 5.6 months (95% CI, 3.7-7.4). The 12-month PFS rate was 74% with osimertinib vs 22% with placebo, and the 24-month PFS rates were 65% vs 13%, respectively.

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0:09 | The LAURA study focused on patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer for whom the disease was considered surgically unresectable and specifically for patients with an EGFR mutation. For this group of patients, presently, concurrent chemoradiation followed by immunotherapy has been the standard of care. But that is not something that works well for patients with an EGFR mutation. That is why we conducted the LAURA study. If a patient had stage III disease that can be removed surgically and they had an EGFR mutation, these data are applicable directly to them.

0:48 | Now that osimertinib part of treatment for every stage of non–small cell lung cancer, I think the next step would be to build on the benefit of osimertinib and develop novel combination approaches, understanding osimertinib’s mechanisms, which we have a good sense of, and developing novel approaches to overcome resistance are going to be important.

1:06 | It is an exciting time for patients with lung cancer because of the availability of targeted and immunotherapy treatment options. We are seeing improvement in patients with non–small cell lung cancer. Overall, patients with lung cancer are living better and living longer, and that is thanks to the amazing therapeutic advances that have been made in the past few years.