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HealthDay News — For patients with locally advanced, unresectable, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the anti-programmed death ligand 1 antibody durvalumab is associated with significantly longer progression-free survival compared with placebo, according to a study published online September 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research was published to coincide with the European Society of Medical Oncology Congress, held from September 8 to 12 in Madrid.
Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, and colleagues randomized 709 patients with stage III NSCLC in a 2:1 ratio to receive durvalumab (473 patients) or placebo (236 patients) every two weeks for up to one year.
The researchers found that the median progression-free survival from randomization was 16.8 and 5.6 months for durvalumab and placebo, respectively (stratified hazard ratio for disease progression or death, 0.52); the 12- and 18-month progression-free survival rates were 55.9 and 35.3%, respectively, and 44.2 and 27.0%, respectively. A significantly higher response rate was seen with durvalumab versus placebo (28.4 versus 16.0%), with a longer median duration of response (72.8 versus 46.8% of patients had ongoing response at 18 months). Durvalumab was associated with significantly longer median time to death or distant metastasis (23.2 versus 14.6 months). Grade 3 or 4 adverse events occurred in 29.9 and 26.1% of patients who received durvalumab and placebo, respectively.
“Progression-free survival was significantly longer with durvalumab than with placebo,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, which manufactures durvalumab and funded the study.
