medwireNews: Updated results from the phase III ALEX trial show that the progression-free survival (PFS) benefit conferred by alectinib over crizotinib is maintained over time in treatment-naïve patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) alteration-positive, advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
At a median follow-up of 27.8 months in the alectinib group and 22.8 months in the crizotinib group, median PFS was 34.8 months for the 152 participants who received the second-generation ALK inhibitor for the first-line treatment of stage IIIB–IV disease. This was significantly longer than the 10.9 months for the 151 patients given crizotinib and equated to a hazard ratio for progression or death of 0.43.
The PFS boost with alectinib was evident both in patients with and those without brain metastases at baseline (HR=0.35 and 0.47, respectively), as per a poster presented by Ross Camidge (University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, USA) at the ASCO Annual Meeting 2018 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Alectinib also continued to be better tolerated than crizotinib, with grade 3–5 toxicities observed in a respective 45% and 51% of participants, despite a longer median treatment duration, at 27.0 months versus 10.8 months for crizotinib.
Although the overall survival data remain immature, the researchers believe that these results consolidate alectinib as the first-line treatment of choice in this patient population.
medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group
See also:
- US ALK-positive metastatic NSCLC patients may receive first-line alectinib
- ALUR, ALEX results cement alectinib as advanced ALK-positive NSCLC standard of care
- Alectinib ‘new standard of care’ for untreated ALK-positive NSCLC
- Alectinib outperforms crizotinib in Japanese patients with ALK-rearranged NSCLC