A two-drug pairing held advanced lung cancer back far longer in a large trial

Across 68 hospitals in China, 413 people with newly diagnosed advanced lung cancer whose tumours carry the PD-L1 marker received either standard treatment or a pairing of the targeted drug sacituzumab tirumotecan with the immunotherapy pembrolizumab. On the pairing, the cancer was held back so long that the median time without the disease growing had not yet been reached, versus 5.7 months on the standard arm — a 65% lower risk of progression — and tumours shrank in 70% of patients versus 42%. The Phase 3 results were published in The Lancet and presented at the ESMO congress by Professor Caicun Zhou of Shanghai.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation