Nearly five more months of life: a two-pill combination outlasts chemotherapy in resistant lung cancer

When lung cancer learns to resist its best targeted drug, the usual next step is intravenous chemotherapy. The SAFFRON trial asked whether two pills could do better: in patients whose EGFR-mutated lung cancer had progressed with high levels of a resistance signal called MET, continuing the targeted pill Tagrisso and adding a second pill, savolitinib, stretched median survival to 17.8 months, against 12.9 months on chemotherapy — a 32% lower risk of death, with 70% of the combination group alive at one year versus 53%. The Phase III results, led by Professor Shun Lu of Shanghai Chest Hospital, were presented in Madrid and published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Wider use still needs regulators' approval.

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