Previously the AURA3 study – comprising 419 patients who had progressed after treatment with one prior EGFR–tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) – demonstrated significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS)  and better central nervous system outcomes among the 279 patients who were randomly assigned to receive osimertinib 80 mg/day compared with the 140 who instead received up to six cycles of cisplatin or carboplatin alongside pemetrexed.

Ramalingam video Over a median follow-up of 35.8 months, the median OS duration was 38.6 months for the 279 participants with locally advanced or metastatic disease who were randomly assigned to receive osimertinib 80 mg/day.

As assessed by the EORTC Core Quality of Life Questionnaire and the Lung Cancer Module, the time to deterioration for key symptoms including cough, chest pain, and dyspnea was significantly longer for the 279 participants who were randomly assigned to receive osimertinib than the 140 given pemetrexed alongside either carboplatin or cisplatin, with respective hazard ratios of 0.74, 0.52, and 0.42 in favor of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor.

Click here for a video interview with study author Suresh Ramalingam Progression-free survival was significantly longer for the 279 patients randomly assigned to receive osimertinib 80 mg/day than for the 277 given the current standard of care (gefitinib 250 mg/day or erlotinib 150 mg/day), at a median of 18.9 versus 10.2 months and a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.46.

In total, 834 patients with advanced melanoma were enrolled into the multicenter KEYNOTE-006 study and randomly assigned to receive treatment with intravenous pembrolizumab 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks (n=279) or every 3 weeks (n=277) for a maximum of 2 years, or to receive intravenous ipilimumab 3 mg/kg every 3 weeks for four doses (n=278).

Progression-free survival (PFS) was a median of 10.1 months for the 279 patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease who were randomly assigned to receive oral osimertinib (80 mg/day).