INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. For people battling a certain type of lung cancer, there’s good news.
A new targeted therapy is significantly improving lung cancer patient outcomes. The drug is called Osimertinib, or brand name Tagrisso. It’s given after a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
“Before this, patients would be offered chemo and radiation. And really after that they would just be observed. And recurrence rates for those patients were really quite high,” said Greg Durm, MD, medical oncologist at Indiana University Health.
A study released in 2024 focused on patients with Stage Three Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. These patients also had a common mutation in the EGFR protein, keeping cancer cells alive longer and driving cancer growth.
“This drug was developed to specifically target this EGFR protein, and sort of limit that cancer growth,” explained Dr. Durm.
The study found more than half of patients treated with this drug had no new cancer growth or changes for more than three years. For the placebo group, it was about six months. Today, doctors say this drug has become the new standard of care in treating this type of cancer.
“With the addition of this Osimertinib medication for this specific subgroup of patients, we’re seeing a dramatic improvement for these patients,” Dr. Durm told Ivanhoe.
The drug has also proven to reduce the spread of cancer to the brain.
Dr. Durm says the medication can cause some additional side effects. But overall, he says it’s a well-tolerated drug.
Contributors to this news report include: Lindsay Daily, Producer; Kyle Fisher, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
Sources:
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/lung-cancer/about/key-statistics.html
* For More Information, Contact: Greg Durm, MD
Medical Oncologist at Indiana University Health
and
Sophie Wolanin
Senior Public Relations Associate at Indiana University Health
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