A once-daily pill halved people’s risk of dying from a common lung cancer when they took the drug after tumor-removal surgery, new trial data shows.
Made by the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Tagrisso, also known as osimertinib, reduced the five-year risk of death in lung cancer patients by 51%, according to a study published Sunday (June 4) in The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers presented this data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago (June 2-6).
The study was the result of a 682-patient trial that included participants diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), one of two main types of primary lung cancer. All patients also had a mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene, which codes for a protein found on the surface of cells. EGFR mutations can boost cancer’s ability to grow and spread, raising patients’ risk of cancer recurrence post-treatment.
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