Two lung-cancer pills together gave patients about five more months — and a new standard of care

Some lung cancers learn to resist the drug that first held them back. In the Phase 3 SAFFRON trial, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Madrid, 338 people whose EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer had progressed on osimertinib — and whose tumours showed a resistance route called MET — were given either osimertinib plus a second pill, savolitinib, or chemotherapy. The all-pill combination cut the risk of the cancer progressing or death by 45%, and patients lived a median of 17.8 months against 12.9 months on chemotherapy — about five months longer — with tumours responding in 51% of patients versus 27%. 'Have we met a new standard of care? Yes, we have,' said invited discussant Natasha Leighl of the University of Toronto. The results were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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