Durvalumab maintenance for unresectable NSCLC approved for UK patients

medwireNews: The UK’s NICE has recommended use of maintenance durvalumab therapy in patients with unresectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have previously received concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation.

Medicine Matters oncology Editorial Board member Fiona Blackhall said that this decision represents “real progress” for this patient population.  

The announcement follows findings from the ongoing PACIFIC trial and therefore applies to patients with tumors expressing PD-L1 on at least 1% of tumor cells and whose disease has not progressed after platinum-based chemoradiation.

However, the PACIFIC results are not generalizable to NSCLC patients who have received sequential platinum-based chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Maintenance use of the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab in the UK is recommended only through the Cancer Drugs Fund until further findings from PACIFIC are available on progression-free and overall survival with this agent.

By Lynda Williams

medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2019 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group

See also:

• PACIFIC: Durvalumab prolongs PFS in stage III NSCLC patients
• NSCLC highlights from ESMO 2017
• Durvalumab, abemaciclib approvals announced by EMA
• Durvalumab available for US stage III NSCLC patients